saturdays on c-span two exploring the people and events that tell the american story. at 5:25 pm eastern on the 20th anniversary of the iraq war, historian melvin lafleur talks about the war. president george w. bush and american foreign policy with martin di caro host of the washington times history as it happens podcast. at 8 pm eastern on lectures in history princeton university's gala islandaza allow puritanism and light mint shaped philosophy in colonial america. exploring the american story, watch american history tv, saturdays on c-span two. find a full schedule on your program guide, or watch online anytime at c-span.org slash history. u.s. china economic security review commission held a hearing to review china's

military committee, power, and global influence. the committee was created in 2000 and was tasked with investigating the national security relations with u.s. relations with china. this hearing is more than four hours. good morning everyone. lock him to the first hearing of that economic security review commission 2023 annual report cycle. before we begin, i would like

to extend a warm welcome to the commission's newest member, commissioner reva price. commissioner price has many years of experience working in congress on china related issues. we look forward to her many contributions to our work. thank you all for joining us today thank you to our witnesses for sharing your expertise and for the work you put into your testimonies. i would also like to thank the senate committee on environmental public works for allowing us the use of this hearing room in the senate for livestreaming this event. i also want to express my appreciation for the work of each of our staff members commissioned staff members are essential to this commission success per day in particular out like to thank sierra janitor and jesse foster for the capable working putting together this hearing. this hearing will examine the range of foreign investment undertaken by china's military and internal security forces, as well as elements of china's military industrial complex and

the implications of those activities for the united states the chinese communist party, under general secretary xi jinping, it pursuing a goal of developing the people's liberation army into a world class military by the middle of the 21st century, not that far away. achieving this goal is a critical component of the ccp i do establish a sino--centric world order. in this new world order, other countries would acquiesce to china's priorities in provinces and an arrangement that general secretary xi refers to euphemistically as a community of common human destiny. the foreign activities of the pla another chinese security forces contribute to these goals in several ways. by conducting regular bilateral and multilateral dialogue with other country security forces the pla is building relationships and expanding its presence on the global stage. by participating and exercises and training with other military, the pla practices power projection skills and

cultivates an image of china as a responsible contributor to global security. maintaining robust defense ties with russia, china has sought to learn from its past combat experience, and also continues to pursue joint development of advanced military technology, such as heavy lift helicopters. the advanced economies of europe have played a role in supporting the pla's development by licensing chinese development of -- china state owned defense corporation have subsequently indigenized are the pla's own use an export. china has also been a major player in the international arms market. ranking among the top five global arms with higher since, at least, 22 could. although total sales remain significantly below the united states or russia, china has established itself as a leading global provider of certain weapons such as unmanned aerial vehicles. it is also a major supplier to certain countries on the periphery, such as pakistan and

bangladesh. as in so many other areas of foreign engagement. when it comes to foreign military sales, chinese militaries have no qualms about selling weapons to countries, or parties, that the u.s. and other parties will not. including the military dictatorship in burma. or in active conflict zones of sudan and so sudan. as the u.s. and its allies navigate the strategic competition with china. it is imperative that we understand both drivers of china's foreign military activity and the implications for the international security order. china's military relationship with russia deserves particular scrutiny in the continued fallout from russian parliament veteran's war against ukraine. finally, as beijing continues to throw out the vague idea of a global security initiative about china, a thorough examination of china's military diplomacy will provide valuable insight into what the world should expect in the world years to come. we look forward to exploring these topics in detail in the

hearing today. and to discussing actionable policy recommendations for the u.s. congress. i will now turn the floor over to my colleague and co-chair for this hearing, commissioner mandy shriver. >> thank you. good morning. i don't chair bartholomew in welcoming our witnesses, and to those watching online. the chinese communist party, the people's liberation army, will be instrumental in determining whether a president xi jinping's aspirations great national rejuvenation are met. the goals behind general secretary xi's for the pla to become a world-class military by 2049 are not limited by -- more simple desire to acquire the trappings of global power status. for the ccp to succeed amid its own ambitions, the pla must become a much more capable military. general secretary xi needs a pla capable of protecting the ccp sovereignty over a number of expansive and illegal

sovereignty claims. he needs a pla that can successfully operate in the taiwan contingency for the purpose of forced unification he needs a pla that can look after broader and regional interests particularly where protections of the lines of communication are concerned. he needs a pla that can be successful in augmenting prc efforts to create a regional order where countries are more differential to their interests and -- it is increasingly clear that the pla must be more active in order to receive these capabilities and be better postured to play the role in vision under it. under the guidance of the ccp in the central military cape, the pla is engaging in military diplomacy of various kinds. conducting bilateral multi lateral exercises greater frequency. it is creating foreign bases and access opportunities.

it is engaging in operational military operations -- and is promoting active military sales. this external joint is very robust. and these activities expand and evolve we want to know more about how these activities impact chinese military modernization, how they promote relationships with china which may alter the geopolitical landscape and how they're impacting our allies and partners. most importantly, how they affect the u.s. and china's green power competition. i look forward to hearing and learning from our witnesses and all of these matters. our first panel will examine the concepts and strategy of china's military diplomacy and overseas security diplomacy. we will start with dr. phillips honors. dr. saunders of the director of the center for chinese military affairs his testimony will provide an overview of china's military diplomacy. next we will hear from kristen goodness. a senior policy researcher at the preincorporation. miss goodness will address

china's through educational exchanges finally we will hear from mr. jordan link an independent researcher and former china policy analyst at international policy for the center of american progress. he will discuss the chinese ministry of engagement with other countries internal security remarks. it's a great pleasure to be here today to participate in the hearing. my testimony today is going to go heavily on a database that the national defense university set up on chinese military diplomacy. it's based on work pioneering work by ken allen but updated by a string of talented research assistants and including melody whom you will hear from you latertoday and to give an overvw talented research assistants and in terms including miss melanie hahn, who you hear from

later today. i will try to give an overview of the objectives and paint the big picture of what china does. the pla defines military diplomacy as external relations pertaining to military unrelated affairs between countries and groups of countries. including things like military personnel exchanges, negotiations, uncontrolled negotiation, military aid, military intelligence cooperation, military technology cooperation. peacekeeping. military alliance activities. et cetera. i think that the key point is the inconceivable this at the component of china's broader diplomatic efforts. they stress that military diplomacy must always serve the overall foreign policy of china. i think that this is the case if you look at the big outlines of chinese foreign policy that focuses on strategic relations with great powers the countries on the periphery that engage in the developing world those are exactly the priorities of military diplomacy a couple key

points not as a means as bilateral relationships a lot of the activity is not very substantive but it is important in political relationship terms. one of the things it is useful for as an indicator for the overall state bilateralization. things are going good the military activity will pick up. if there are problems with the relationship it will slow down. to talk briefly about a couple of the goals i think they can be divided into strategic and operational goals. strategic goals including supporting chinese diplomacy in foreign policy shaping the security environment operational goals include collecting intelligence and learning new skills to support pla modernization. the types of thing that pla does include senior level visits, security dialogues military exercises, both bilateral and multilateral, knee-deep for calls, functional

exchanges focused on specific military areas. also, non-traditional security operations, including humanitarian assistance, disaster relief and peacekeeping. if we look at it in the big picture, the bulk of what the pla does in this realm is high level -- the high level meetings with foreign counterparts. we do see that in 2009 military exercises starting to make up a bigger percentage of that activity. i think we have given your hand out for one sattar to. >> in 2014 we have declined somewhat since we have inclined over the internal focus. one thing that comes out in the data is it tracks in the five year political cycle. when it is a party converse year, the pla senior officers are busy politicking at home in beijing.

they have less time to go abroad to meet with foreigners. finally, a big impact of covid-19, the diplomatic engagements this fall off the roof in 2020 and 2021. i was asked to speak about priorities. asia is the highest priority region. europe's second and africa distant third. within asia, southeast asia and south asia are the main sub regions. i just want to note that this is a global presence. the pla have more than 130 military attaché or military representative offices abroad. they are regularly engaged in new mps kicking operations. usually about five at any given time with about 2500 troops. they participate, periodically, in humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. they maintain an escort task force, the counter piracy force in the gulf since december 2000. that all provides access to foreign militaries. and i was asked to talk a

little bit about the changes. again this decline since 2015. i think that has a lot to do with tighter ccc control of the military and focusing on reforms. one of the things that stand out as an increased comfort with multilateral settings the pla used to be very suspicious of this and now participates in montana lateral meetings -- the brinks grouping, the shangri-la dialogue is started to host its own. the china africa peace and security form. the latin american defense form. i mentioned the impact of covid, which was significant. i will not go into detail on the organizations responsible for this but the key one is the central military commissions office of international military cooperation. the defense minister plays a crucial role. he supervises that office. he also sits on the central foreign affairs committee.

he is the liaison with the rest of the chinese government. as commissioner schreiber said, the pla is a army, they don't really work for the government. they need mechanisms like that. the joint staff department plays a role in military diplomacy. they have a deputy that isn't charged and is actively also involved. to get to the implications reconciler, this is a new area of u.s. china strategic competition. most intense in the indo-pacific but also evident in other regions. we are going to see, and our, seeing the u.s. and china used tools and diplomacy to strengthen military ties and increase their influence with third countries. this is an area that will be part of a competition. they sometimes try to use this to undermine u.s. alliances without a lot of success. the trend that i see something different. it is u.s. allies or partners that are engaging the pla as part of their broader china

strategy. some are doing this very consciously for, mostly, symbolic political reasons. i personally do not think washington should get too upset if countries like australia and singapore are using symbolic military cooperation with the pla to off that they're much more substantive military cooperation with us. rather than trying to stop it we should focus on limiting it. limiting the pla ability to learn from foreign military. limiting the ability to learn the things that we teach allies and partners. trying to restrict their access to ports and bases. with that, there is more to say but not more time to say it in. i will end on time and see my other points for the q&a. >> thank you. miss gunnes? >> co-chair bartholomew, co-chair shriver, commission members and staff, thank you very much for the opportunity to testify at this hearing.

for my testimony i will address the objectives of china's overseas military diplomacy. how china's approach has evolved given the intensifying u.s. strategic competition. ways in which china's military diplomacy activities. could potentially challenge u.s. interests and recommendations for policymakers. china peers to have three primary objectives for overseas military diplomacy. first, china uses military diplomacy to help shape the environment to be more conducive to chinese interests. it says this military diplomacy to promote certain narratives and aimed at bolstering china's image overseas. shaping the global perception in china's favor. for example, china frequently frames overseas military engagements and promoting it peaceful rise through supporting international security and contributing to civility. china also uses military diplomacy as a tool to counter anti china narratives to promote its own vision of global security. for example, the pla focused

security efforts in developing countries that participate in the belt and road initiative to cultivate relationships with partners that are willing to join and push back against what it is framed against a western system to developing nations. second, as the u.s. china competition intensifies military diplomacy is one of the tools of china's using to gain advantage. the pla's foreign engagement now plays a supporting role in china's broader effort to build a network of partners that prioritize relations with china over the united states. degrade u.s. partnerships, as well as promote its own agenda. this is developed in china's increasing its security footprint in the island states, an america, and africa. military diplomacy also serves to how china increases military access. examples include peacekeeping operations and unstable energy rich countries in africa, security partnership building with countries in central and south asia. these activities, if successful,

could potentially extend the range and geographic reach of china's reach in the future. as well as institutionalized annoys china's military access overseas. if third objective is that military diplomacy supports the pla's development of expeditionary capabilities. abilities to conduct overseas missions through expanding security partnerships and opportunities to build operational experience by deploying a blond. the pla's counterterrorism agency is an example of the amortization using non traditional military objectives to develop a specific ability. in this case flock perception. facilitating ties to countries in africa in the middle east. eventually leading to the establishment of china's naval base in djibouti. military naval bases could also potentially lead to china gaining access to military withdrew used technology. including through exchanges in collaboration with european exchanges. the pla's overseas military

engagement has facilitated countries like pakistan to gaining access and technology to improve their military capabilities. the pla has confronted several challenges and human military diplomacy to support their foreign policy goals. however, including limited access to improved overseas reactions, small deployments in developing countries are difficult to expand without significant additional investment. lack of pla readiness to take on security missions and unstable countries, and the political nature of china's military engagements which provides limited engagement for four military. finally the pla diplomacy is really beholden to china's overall approach to foreign policy which is not it is conducive to expanding military relation abroad. against thehowever, chinese miy activity does has the potential to challenge u.s. interests through more opportunities for intelligence collection. the financial establishment of potential overseas bases which could provide a platform for extended pla operational reach. through efforts an arms sale

technology transfer and military training to build a wider range partnered with more military capability that could impact u.s. interest. given china's approach to overseas military diplomacy and the potential challenges to u.s. interest, u.s. policy makers might consider the following. first, capitalize on the united states robust alliance partnership network to limit china's access. china still building a network of security partners gaining vital locations. the u.s. can -- advance security cooperation with key countries to limit their willingness to allow china to access ports and other infrastructure. this could include more security cooperation with states in the pacific islands, south asia, and the indian ocean region. second, work with u.s. allies and partners to mitigate intelligent risks for chinese military activities. the united states could assist allies and partners by mitigating information russ by bolstering information security

capabilities as well as supporting all of the partners oguinye comprehensive picture of the chinese military activity in the region. third, increase awareness on china's oversea military awareness and how it supports broader chinese policy objectives in u.s. ally interest. for example, the united states consider considering frank discussions about limiting the discussion of pla's to use military diplomacy to increase operational -- fourth, the public profile of u.s. military engagement. the united states should be sure its own engagements over the bolt allies and partners, as well as china. the benefits of those engagements are clearly articulated. fifth consider supporting additional research on china's military diplomacy. topics could include examining how military diplomacy efforts to expand security efforts are broad tied to broader chinese purity efforts the.

global development initiative. the global security initiative. and assessing future trends and assumptions for how the pla might employ military diplomacy in the context of u.s. china competition. i think it will stop there. thank, you look forward to your questions. >> excellent, thank you. . mr. link? >> distinguished co-chairs and commissioner, thank you for allowing me to testify today on the overseas identities of china's military authority. under shooting paying the chinese military has increasingly elevated their -- tool of a influence and shape global security more. ms. it is typically understood as a domestic racing institution. it's day-to-day responsibility include law enforcement, and criminal justice work the authority also includes political police as some really made. it's the euphemism for controlling protests, riots, and other forms of dissent. the nps is a core part of the ccp apparatus serving as the party's main toward political

harder and social order. the nps also has a international mandate that organizes and a collaborates with international policed -- the scope of the nps of the international committee can be divided into three main category. number one, unilateral action of transnational bilateral engagements including bilateral meetings, formal agreements, capacity agreements, material substance, extraterritorial joint security patrols. three, what about engagement. including the engagement of new collateral institutions and communications with established bodies, such as interpol. the global efforts posed significant challenges to the united states and other liberal democracies such as the nps can trains -- kidnapping such as threatening individuals abroad it. operates under the ccp own definition of rule of law and hire them which apart from globally established norms simultaneously erodes the shared recognition of these consular creating a previous where it wide ranging authority to act abroad. finally nps breaking behavior

could encourage other authoritarian regimes to act in similar ways. in terms of middle actions the nps plays a key role in the ccp campaign of transnational repression. most certainly through. -- fox, hunts kind. it operation foxhunt was launched in 2014 and in the initiative to locate in recognize the alleged chinese -- the ccp is also using campaign to parts political rivals, silence critics, and eliminate proceed florence until the thrift. the firming of operation foxhunt has been conducted on u.s. soil were agents have surveilled, harassed, u.s. citizens. in terms of multilateral engagement -- for saunter relationship for security. building nps's reputation as a credible security partner. i have 114 exchanges -- over half of which is happened, over 60% of these took place with the asian government, about half of whom worked in china. counterterrorism those strictly discussed topics and

identifying bilateral exchanges. aligning the impetuses role as the leading organization in counterterrorism. other commonly discussed topics during these meetings are transnational crime, counter drug effort, law enforcement cooperation and capacity building and border security. topics edges maintaining stability in managing protests and riots were instantly 41 bilateral meetings from officials with bilateral countries -- the pla relief agreements with 51 different partner governments between 21 to 1 2023. this includes negative impacts on human. riots in the 2020 the egyptian government signed an agreement between the nps and the chinese ministry tweeted address the terrorism an extreme ideology. -- the last weekions that is turning siphons to partner and the 77,000 that i identified asian governments receive the most rain sessions that about 40%.

african governments receive the next larger share, 34%. the nps of trained police on tendering country from through the remaining topics. increasing the nps offers topics on security -- nadler and network technology and artificial networks. from 2006 to 2021 the nps provide material assistance in 22 different countries and 13 out of an occasions. these donations range from computers, police, equipment investigative technology and the contraction of facilities for all partners security -- the nps also conducted bilateral joint patrols with police officers and croatia, italy, and serbia between 2016 and 2019. according to chinese news sources you patrolled were intended to protect chinese tourists and other nations during the height of tourism. -- in 2015 the ap has created the international institutions which stronger relationships abroad -- this forum combines police and security officials from 30 to

40 countries annually. participants in this form reign from liberal concedes to authoritarian regimes. the nps associated police equipment expo alongside the storm to offer business opportunities for domestic firms. services like drones, official recognition system, smart transport, smart city technology, armored vehicles, and weapons. the nps also engages with an existing multilateral situation subject in a poll. while interpol is forbidden under article three of the institution of undertaking any intervention or activity of a political, military, religious, or race or character beijing in the nps has reportedly violated into polls roles like pursuing dissident -- he the core objective to dressing the nps role in transforming the policy took it should be to counter deter mbs's willingness and the ability to determine abilities abroad that break

local international law, undermine international norms, and endangered civilians. at the same time, the u.s. must address the fact that certain circumstance of the nps meeting public unity demands from countries that share the prc's authoritarian values. to protect the u.s.'s interest, the u.s. government to counter transnational greszler currying in the u.s. by adapting new regulation while focusing on helping individuals and targeted by the institution. second, building in knowledge base of and psa timothy through increase monitoring of and reporting on nps. sharing those -- pressing for increased transparency in partner governments engaging with the mbs. the first option include mandating irregular report on the nps of activities. thank you. fellow commissioners, we are thank you. three excellent statements. very rich. for fellow commissioners we are going to go in reverse alphabetical order. the chair and co-chair will reserve a question to the ed.

that is why we made this complicated but we will start, and that case, with chairman waller. >> thank you. thank you for your testimony. i will start with, doctor ghana's? professor? okay, miss gonna's. i noticed at the end of your entire monee that you mentioned a study mentioning the global development initiative. that concept that xi jinping put out, at least to me, is very amorphous. i'm not quite sure what it means. could you maybe talk a little bit on how you see military diplomacy fitting into that concept? even preliminarily given that it is an amorphous concept? >> >> sure. thank you for your question. i think the global security initiative notwithstanding i think the main point is china is increasingly using the

military as a tool to the policy goals part of that is because the pla actually has the capability table to do that now. whereas they didn't in the past. near the part of it is i think the intent of military diplomacy, as i was saying in my testimony, to gain access and build relations to build a network of partners that will feed into china's economic goals and foreign policy goals. i think the global security initiative is amorphous. i know maybe doctor saunders can explain it better but i think, and this, point there are not a lot of details right now in the public domain, anyway, about. at the broader point is the military diplomacy will continue to feed into that. supporting some broader foreign policy goals. >> adding to that? >> not a lot specifically. but this is a powder that you

see sometimes in china. leadership will endorse and amorphous concept. everybody in the democracy tries to figure out, how can we shape this? how can we put our stuff inside of it? i think the pla is one of the actors trying to do. that we have all of these capabilities we have all the things we want to do how do we get into a concept like global security initiative that she jinping as a north we get more resources and your paddock credit for doing so i think is still very much work in progress. >> they don't quite know and perhaps they don't know. now, i don't quite think. so reading your recommendations from all of you, you talk about limiting the negative effects on u.s. interest from expanded exercises, weapons sales, training. it strikes me -- tell me if this is wrong, that in the long term as china expands its presence and relationships across the world

yes, there is a threat of chinese power protection. they may not have the capability to do that locally but in the short term it sounded like from york mitigations the main concern for the u.s. is it will complicate our relationships. compromising or, from an intelligence perspective, our training messages. our doctrines. our technologies. or perhaps the fact the chinese hasn't even small foothold in some of these partner nations that will make them more reluctant to give us the access the operational maneuverability whatever terms you want to use. is that correct? in the short term complicates our alliance structure long term the power relation from the chinese? i think that that is roy. if you take something like the pacific islands where china has

worked on building influence in specific areas, not just a security question but also economically. they have worked on building influence. i think that that is an area where the u.s. has not until recently focused a lot of our security engagement as well as foreign policy engagements in that area i think that they look for areas like not where they can gain advantage where the u.s. may not be paying as much attention also where the strategic locations -- i think it is a two-part thing i would say that with u.s. allies and partners we typically have a very good security relationship a very robust ones if they can better what they are getting from china and what they're getting from us what the dialogue with china is the dialogue with us it is entirely different it is much more substantive in the

relations with the u.s. for our allies and partners if they're doing thing with china choosing because they want to learn about china or because they want to manage their relationship with china. the help they need is to raise the game, know how the pla operates, not to protect themselves. for developing country they're looking for any type of training and assistance that they can get from all comers. it is a very different dynamic there. >> thank you >> commissioner price, lacombe. >> thank you. thank you all for participating today. your testimony has been very, very, helpful. first question, to miss guinness and mr. saunders, following up on what commissioner won just an asked, how, in your opinion, should u.s. policy makers weigh the cost and benefits of engagement with china security forces?

>> >> one part of it is to do no harm. we want to be careful what we do. well we talk to them about, but we show them. in my experience i have been with the department of defense, personally, since 2004 i've seen a pretty careful effort to that what we do and to exercise positive control over it. that is one piece. second is to think, what is the positive agenda? we are in a competitive relationship with china it would be good to have better crisis management and crisis communication mechanisms to deal with the problems that come up. it would be better to have an understanding of how the pla things. what are their threat perceptions? these engagements provide a window on that you have to be disciplined you have to be

prepared. if you know the right questions to ask and ask in a disciplined way than you can learn a lot from engaging the pla. part of our job is to do research on that. we have done a number of books, including on the pla's reforms. i can say that our ability to meet with them, talk with them, understand why they are doing what they're doing offered a lot of really, really, valuable insights. part of it is being very disciplined and very focused. know what you want to learn know what you want to ask what you want to protect do so in a really disciplined way. that kind of preparation, some things we know we don't want to talk to them. we don't want to help them modernize their military. approve the joint operation capabilities. traditii talked to a senior pla official who was involved in doing this.

they said we would like to do exercises for you on traditional security things. we want to learn receiving. we will do it, so we have to go to the russians. we really want to learn from you but you are not gonna let us do that. so, >> i would add that i agree with everything doctor saunders said but there is the political aspect of these interactions. it is important, especially for countries in the region that want to be seen as bolstering relations with china in certain ways. they are part and parcel of other engagements that countries in the region have with china i think not necessarily asking them to curtail those engagements but education about the education that china is pursuing. and again about military diplomacy activities that might be harmful. >> thank you.

mr. link, your presentation, here presentation on public security is very interesting and helpful has there been any observable efforts by the u.s. or our allies to better assess the nps overseas presidents and potentially respond to their activities with overseas police stations, et cetera? it is very much part of your recommendation. i don't know -- >> we have seen the fbi and other folks within our own intelligence community to have press cover things about drawing light to operation fox hunt and things of that nature. in terms of the other types of engagements, no not really that is not my specific research focus here. i might have missed it. i don't think so >> those are

my questions. >> commissioner man? >> thank you. i want to ask all the witnesses, i think i will start with saunders. a broader question what makes the pla military diplomacy different than ours other than the fairly significant point of the governmental regime that they represent? and the ones that they work with and their competition with us drawn out for me what makes the nature of their diplomacy different. i saw a philip sa testifying the types of things the pla does. a say in many cases like what we do. high-level diplomacy and someone i asked this open-ended. is there something different? his aunt very much like what we

do? >> well, two things. one, they are partly watching what we do and modeled some of it when we do. a lot of the lines of similarity are paralleled formally. you have a high level with the u.s. military officer, you are gonna get a frank assessment you are gonna get a statement of u.s. policy. it is a start of a relationship. we will try to follow up and build that. that is how the officers get to be senior military officers. building and maintaining those relationships. if you have a similar meeting with a pla senior officer they will stick to their talking points. they will not be able to follow up off of official channels. it is probably in one and done here. probably not going to engage with them through the duration they can only make one trip overseas, a year.

they are going to give you the party line in the talking points and they're not gonna move from the. those may well be lines. or transparently exaggerated falsehoods. you come out of the meeting not having built antitrust or bill a relationship. you learn about the chinese talking points are. at least in my experience with these things you come away with a more negative impression and you started with. that is a part of it. they are under political controls which really inhibit what they do. similarly with a lot of training and education. i will speak to mother education because that is the area i know best, program. when the pla brings foreign students in the have a separate campus, a separate program. they will sometimes have chinese pla officers there participating in the class. essentially it is a stage manage education done

specifically for foreigners. when the u.s. brings foreign students into our school they are essentially getting the same type of training that the u.s. is getting. they are in the same classes. they're in the same curriculum. they come away with a much deeper understanding of the subject. relationships with both the u.s. counterpart another foreign counterparts that, for many cases, last for decades. it is a very different qualitative experience. i think a lot of these are similar in form but if you look at the content of dialogues and high-level meetings and educational sessions, they are very different. i think that the u.s., in general, is much more focused on building capacity and interoperability than the pla's. >> just to piggyback on those comments i think the breath of u.s. acuity engagement in competition is quite different

than the pla's. this is partly a question of capabilities. they haven't had the capability to do some things until relatively recently. i think it is to dr. sanjay's point a question a different intent. the political nature of the exchanges really limits benefits to foreign militaries, such as our mental capability and interoperability. there are anecdotes of military learned country saying, well yeah, we are happy to have the pla come and train us or help us with our training. honestly, we don't always think they're all that great compared to other countries trainings. there are anecdotes like that. i think that that speaks to the more limited nature of pla cooperation and the political aspect of the cooperation. which is quite different than the u.s. military. >> if i can make one quick

point, there are a group of foreign students who have been trained by the pla, been trained by the u.s., that is an opportunity to talk to them and get their views on one of the strength and weaknesses of how the u.s. does it and how china does it. many people have been through both of those courses. >> thank you. jim, you get one question if you would like a second round i think we would have time commissioner goodwin? >> thank you mister chair. my appreciation to the witnesses for their time today. dr. saunders, you both referenced some of the military diplomatic activity that the pla engages in in the form of counter piracy operations that, obviously, is designed to help gain critical expertise in connecting lines of expertise

and energy security. my question is, have you seen any trends or uptick in this sort of engagement or a? preach since russia's engagement of ukraine geared specifically protecting energy security? >> that is a great question. i think the answer is i haven't really seen now. the bigger impact has been covid. what used to happen is the pla would send two or three shifts to the goal of aiden for two or three months they would refuel from djibouti and on the way that they would make for a five poor columns and do various engagement with foreign militaries. that was some of the calls that made ties. the last of the poor calls were made in march of 2000. now they finish that deployment

and they sail straight home they are not doing those types of things. even when they are doing resupply, they are doing it from djibouti. saw the video on this. essentially they were loading food in china, shrink wrapping it, putting it on a costco freighter. sailing it to djibouti. off-loading it into booty directly to the pla ships. very little interaction with the hosts post government. i think that covid has really curtailed a lot of that. their ability to do some of the military engagement for the purpose of protecting energy security. they are so getting the operational experience in terms of cruising commanders out there doing operational things. but, i think that covid has really knocked them off their gain. >> i would add that some of the non traditional security operations, like peacekeeping that the pla has done, are meant to support china and

building relationships to diversify its energy relationships, sources of supply. well that is not exactly what you're talking about i think it is, kind, of the intent of some of these military diplomacy activities and non-traditional diplomacy accidents where china can diversify energy supply. it's something i'm very concerned about and have been for a long time now. >> mr. link, i had a question -- which in and of themselves are not arrest warrants but they are just request to certain in traditional based on an order or warrant issued in a certain country. my question is what is the extent of inter polls review of these requests? including for compliance -- most notably article three of the constitution? >> thank you for the question for my research it sounds like the review process is under funded there just so many

requests that they did not have the proper screening mechanisms or enough people to do the screening mechanisms that is why oftentimes they just go through. that is why we are in the situation we are in now. is there any publicly available data on the number of red notices requested by countries the extent of their review, whether they are granted or deny based on noncompliance? >> that is another issue where interpol is non transparent. i think there is a total number of red notices, i don't know if it's broken down by year or by country. publicly, at least. >> you referenced the fact that nps has faced few consequences for violating the spirit of these red notices, and article three, with these red notice requests. other any formal mechanisms in place in the red notice process for imposing consequences of

abusing that system or filing what i would refer to as frivolous red notices? >> i can't think of any off the top of my head. thank you. thank you mister chair >> commissioner freeburg? >> thank you very much. thank you to all of our witnesses. i would like to start with dr. saunders. he made an observation about u.s. china military interaction beginning to decline in 2020. what was the reason for that? what is the instigation? miley ha will talk about that more detail in her testimony. concisely it is intensified u.s. china competition. i think that a lot of the decline is on the u.s. side being more careful and what kind of activities we want to go forward.

there is the extraneous factor that the reforms kicked in at the end of 2015. they were very externally focused on all the things they wanted to do. generally having less time for military diplomacy part of that is the u.s., part of that is a more general phenomenon. >> do we have incident to how the pla use the utility of these contacts for the united states? >> i think they view them as a useful means of presenting their talking points. of learning what u.s. thinking is and what the united states is up to. as i mentioned they hope to use this military relationship to improve support, their modernization and improve our company capabilities. i think when i'm pretty disappointed trying to make sure they don't have opportunities to do that. there is a prestige part of it. dealing directly with the u.s..

the most powerful country in the world makes china look good. sometimes, they have particular pieces of business that they want to get done. they want to press the u.s. to limits its reconnaissance operation. they want to warn the u.s. against doing things with taiwan. at times, they're willing to pursue specific kinds of cooperation. such as the rules of engagement for maritime encounters. when they find the interest and in that case they were told to do it by shooting paying. according to several chinese sources that i talked to. the directive came down from the top. partly to use miltonville as a means of managing the relationship with the united states. and specifically to use the confidence building measures the rules of engagement to try to improve relations with the u.s.. >> thank you very much.

i like to ask you to speculate, i know this isn't quite fair. with all of the factors that you describe it, if you had to guess looking at five or ten years. what would you expect in the overall shape and intensity of chinese overseas engagement to look like water. the next steps, do you think, in this outward projection of pla power. >> that's a great question. i think it speaks to the broader question of the type of military that china wants to build. we clearly, they want to build a military with global projection power projection of some sort. to i think how large that will be and what type of military that will be is still an open-ended question. part of that is because in order to do -- to build a kind of military that the united states has, for

example, that's what they would use a day, they would need a much bigger network of allies and partners. they would need a lot of investment. the main strategic direction of the military right now is still regional. it's taiwan. the regional conflicts in the periphery as dr. saunders noted. i do think with all that said, i do think that china will have -- continued to have expand its overseas military diplomacy with the intent of building relationships along the belt and road. to build partnerships in those countries. but for economic interests but also to gain access. i do think they will probably continue to expand a security footprint and some of the areas that they are -- small security footprint. those areas might be latin america for example. or they have the strategic -- operates a space station right now. i think we will see a lot more of that. we will see the navy in

particular. doing more port call. it's going out and about more. that said, i do want to emphasize that deployments overseas right now are pretty limited and small. to actually grow those would require again investment than they are currently doing. we >> thank you. huawei commissioner cleveland? >> thank you. thank you to the witnesses. i was glad to hear all of these say that the meetings themselves. these meetings may not be all that productive because my experience, they are long lecture is. and you leave wondering how that's improving relations. i thought maybe the only one but it sounds like you can occur. i think that these questions for mr. saunders but i'm happy to hear --

i'm particularly interested in the pla's relationship with russia and iran. then i think we talked about exercises. maybe mr. saunders -- the south koreans that of military hotlines with air and naval. capabilities with the northern command. and the deputy commander of south korea in russian prc exercises. misconceived, talk about pla joint exercises with russia and iran. my first question is what are we learning about what's gained in these joint exercises. given your comments that seth curry as an ally. what are we taking away from their participation and these exercises? >> give a preliminary answer. this is an area we're researching right now. to speak to the iran peace. the pla has been very careful in its relations with iran for

a long time. they didn't do much military activity. they did an exercise. the difference was the nuclear deal. and that in their view legitimized iran as a legitimate partner to do things with. and from that point, economic and military engagement picked up. that's a first point with iran. the exercises don't seem that some sort of. the exercise with russia are much more substantive. definitely, it's a pla goal to learn from the russians. learns how they do things. it's also a goal to build interoperability between the two militaries. we're doing a research project right now that is coming up with metrics to look at each of those exercises. with the military significance. what's the political signaling value. and to look for trends over time i. think the preliminary thing we see is that there is an uptick in 2014, 2015 where it

accelerates in terms of the sophistication, the scale of the exercise and the type of things are doing with the russians. a new thing over the last three years are various kinds of joint controls. joint naval patrols. joint air patrols with armors. that's a new element that is just happened. don't necessarily think there's all that much interoperability being built through those things. but the point is signal and strategic willingness of the two countries where the two militaries to cooperate. then the last point that we -- are doing more work on that. some future point, i hope to have more details on that. the final question you ask was about the hotlines. this started out in the wake of a near miss when there was an incident when i believe a rock airliner was almost shut down. the rock understandably was very upset about this. they wanted to have ways to talk to the pla initially it was with the air force the navy

headquarters. now after the reform, that has moved to be the northern theater commanded navy component headquarters. and the air force headquarters. it is unclear to me how well those are used. how effective they are. we've pitched a project to our korean counterparts to examine that issue. there is a little reluctance to go there, unfortunately. i think that's an interesting area. the broader recommendation that kristen had and that i had as well. i think there is value and engaging our allies and partners about these kinds of things. that's the kind of thing we can talk about. they pick up when you call. what's the best practice here. are you doing things that are working more effectively than us or vice versa? how do we best coordinate our approach is? >> if you could build on that in the context of your testimony about the exercises that involve nato.

and europe and pea away and i think you noted that it is assisted the pla in their operational learning. i'm curious what we learned. >> i'd like an elaboration on what they learned but what do you think we learned? >> this was back when the pla started as counter piracy operations. they actually did learn quite a bit from operating with the foreign navies at the time. i don't think that would necessarily be the case nowadays. -- in terms of what we learn. i think we did learn a bit in terms of how would they do or do not do command and control. that would be one of the major points that we learned. counter parachute operations first started. the commanders of the ships had to call back to beijing to make a decision. that has since been working on

reforming that. but that kind of hierarchy with command control and the fostering the ability of commanders in the fields. it will be able to make their own intended assertion with -- the pla has read about extensively as an issue. and a challenge. it's part of what the reform efforts have been aimed at fixing. >> i think my time is up. >> great, thanks. commissioner bork of. >> first, let me say thank you for -- i'm very happy to learn today. the depth that we were going to follow this military diplomacy question. and the message that i got from all of this is clear that like everything else in their country. there is a very vertical management scheme. i'm curious. i want to reiterate i think what he said that i think of a question for doctor saunders.

also for mr. link and please jump in. if i understand it correctly, the office of the central military commission as the office of international military coronation directly under it. then we they report to the defense minister to shooting paying. the fellow who was the ambassador from china -- i hope i saw that correctly. known as the wolf warrior spent a lot of time bashing us last year in the year before. also spent a tremendous minute time in our country visiting with governors and mayors and local localities and business leaders. becoming friends and in a great sense, i'm learning that was a form of military diplomacy. and he's now been appointed the

foreign affairs minister. dr. saunders, in your testimony, you mentioned that there is a seat on the foreign affairs commission derive by the defense minister reaches tree down the line. i'm curious first, do you see his appointment which is only a few weeks ago changing anything or enhancing anything that they're already doing? secondly, -- the i'm curious about the nps, msp, apologize for that. do they report up to the same structure. today eventually also have a seat at the foreign affairs commission. is there a central plane there and do you see any change because of the change in the foreign affairs commission? >> i'll be concise because i don't have a great answer for you. and what i would say is what matters is the priority organ.

the central foreign affairs commission. that's the decision makers. the foreign minister has a voice in a bad. is a member of that participates in those discussions. then he goes out to execute what the commission decides. i think that's an important position but it's not the party position that is the one that makes the decisions and issues with guidance. >> good to know. >> i honestly don't know the answer the question. that's very question. i think it reports more through the central legal apparatus rather than foreign affairs. >> you don't know any specific coordination tweet the two different arms of this military diplomacy? >> no. >> eventually, it all focuses on one man but that's good to know that they have been coordinated -- go ahead, mr. goodness. >> i was gonna say i looked at this. i did a search of writings to see if there was anything that i specifically talked about the pla coordinating with the ministry foreign affairs.

that did not find much of anything. i don't know. that's just an antidote. >> all just flag the area that we don't know that much about. which is the national security commission which is a new organ set up in 2014. it is supposed to pay some kind of coordination role. we know it has civilians. we know it has foreign ministry people. we know it has militarypele we likely almost certainly has public security people on it. it is a little bit of a black box trying to understand how much is it a policy making organ. how much of it is a policy coordination organ. how much of it is an information sharing oregon. it seems to be at least partly a control mechanism. my colleague looked into this and found that this was a structure that's replicated not just at the center but down at

the province's and lower levels. with at least part of the goal of keeping everybody on the same page and following shooting things guidance on security. that's an area where this kind of court a nation might be taking place. we don't know enough about what exactly it does. there's very little reporting on its activities. >> thank you very much. >> madam chair. >> thank you to all of our witnesses. again, their kick of hearing. this is a great way to frame a lot of the issues that will be thinking of moving forward. i'm gonna start. mr. laying, it's very difficult to hear about these exercises. the activities without being outraged. i want to also acknowledge the work of the ngos. particularly sucker defenders for their recent exposé of what has been happening with these police stations. i find myself wondering in

country after country. did the powers that be not know what was going on. did they see what was going on and ignore it. it's pretty alarming for people to hear that there are chinese police stations functioning in cities across the united states for example and what they are doing in terms of outreach against dissidents or things like that. do you think it was a willful blindness were people just didn't see it? >> thank you for the question. this is purely speculation on my part. part of it could be a language barrier. a lot of the signs were posted in chinese and most people in america don't speak chinese. they would understand that it says chinese police station. there is that. i also think that the jury is still a bit out on what the true purpose of the stations are. there are reports i think it was a suburb of paris that someone operating from one of these stations and harass someone to return to china.

there's also been a work that kind of says it's more of an administrative type deal to renew drivers license and things like that. i think we need more evidence still and so we recently saw the fbi raid a new york city looking through that. i guess we're gonna have to wait until we have the details out of assignation. >> following up on commissioner cleveland's questions about china, russia, iran. i want to expand to these exercises china russia south africa exercises are taking place we know. about this no limits partnership between china and russia. i'm wondering if it in terms of the contempt of military diplomacy. if there is coordination beyond the exercises in terms of where they might be focusing. what it is they're trying to achieve. is there any evidence that there is any broader coordination. i am not at all minimizing the consequences in the significance of the exercises.

is their ongoing relationship a building that is part of all of this military diplomacy. china russia and everywhere else. >> i think it's a little bit of what i was saying in my testimony that there is this broader objective of china cultivating relations with countries that it perceives may be willing to push back on the western system. in terms of the naval exercises in particular to talk to -- a lot of that is political signaling. china and russia are doing naval exercises. in the indo-pacific in various areas. it's significant a signal in terms of the signal about the partnership. i do think they're sort of these broader objectives that china has. in having these types of exercises. maybe dr. sanders can talk more

specifically. >> there's a broad relationship -- there is a broader relationship that includes things like military technology. corporation which is both arms sales and technology development. the russians are helping china as it starts to think about missile warning system and how to integrate that into their nuclear forces and their nuclear situational awareness. the exercises do now include combined arms. they include different layers of joint command and control. there is a lot that's happening in those spaces. a lot of it is political signaling. the message they're trying to get across is that china and russia can work together. can work together to thwart specific u.s. interest. that something the u.s. has to consider an be constrained by that. that's sort of the challenge

here is there still a lot of tensions. still a lot of suspicion. sort of parsing how much of the military cooperation is real and what's the significance. how much of it is signaling and exaggerating and we should have an accurate understanding to what it really means. that some of the work we're doing now to try to dig into those things in more detail. we get a better understanding about the military significance and the political value of it. >> can i follow up on that? unless we really look at russia's wholesale destruction of infrastructure and in ukraine. i'll east cancer that they've had a lot of military success per se. i keep wondering -- if the pla comfortable with -- we keep talking about the learning this or they're cooperating on that. sort of lessons learned or even the technology i just read this

morning that there are tanks from 19 -- russian tanks from 1944 that are in laos has now sending back to russia. for use. educate me about what is it that they are actually learning from this cooperation. i understand the signaling. i understand the authoritarianism versus democracy in all of that. just in terms of what are the actually getting out of this education wise? >> plug my colleague who is recently published an article by him that goes into some detail. i think they look at the russians as being an advanced military in terms of combined arms operations. command and control. and how they use intelligence and get it out the field. a military that was more advanced in a lot of these areas. both on a technical level but also knowing how to put the pieces together to make it work. that was a partial model for

the pla reform is going to a brigade structure. that was influenced by the u.s. military. influenced by the russian military as well. they sort of what the russians had figured a lot of this stuff out. they study what they got and then adapted into their purposes. with ukraine, they are finding a lot of the weaknesses and problems in this model when you actually try to make it work. you learn from that as well. what not to do. i think some of the lessons are that you can get a really bogged down in an operation. it's really hard to get momentum picked up again. that may affect how the pla thinks about an issue like taiwan. historically, they want to have tied operations. security and keep what they're going to do a surprise. if they can execute you -- run into even bigger problems. i suspect that's a lesson to take away as you're trying to practice, you gotta know you can do what you plan to do. and maybe it's more important to practice it and be confident

that you can execute it. rather than so much keep it from of the eyes of u.s. intelligence or taiwan intelligence. they're learning a lot from the russian mistakes the russians are making. >> i would add to that that a lot of the ground force exercises that were conducted before ukraine was partly because the pla wanted to add here up -- russians coming back from syria for example another operations where they had had more success. i think that is up until ukraine, that was one of the reasons for joint exercises. in terms of what they would learn. the pla have -- little boy missing in a very small so for. >> thank you. >> great, i have a question for a pla watchers and a question for our p.s. watcher. the first question, maybe dr. saunders forest.

i think we can learn a lot about what the chinese are up to afghanistan organization and people involved. anecdotally, seems to me a lot of their military diplomacy particularly with the u.s. has been conducted by military intelligence professionals. political warfare professionals. in fact even at some of our dialogue were hoping for operational cooperation like safety on the high seas. we get the intel collectors and the political warfare specialists. with the recent reorganization -- maybe what you've observed of a late. does that remain the case that this is very intel heavy when we engage in military diplomacy? >> it's a little hard to say. i have a meta china in three years. my contact with them has been limited.

before, it was explicitly the purview of military intelligence and the military intelligence apparatus. -- predecessor reporting directly to the joint staff department. now, it is a little more of its own thing but it is a flow of people from the joint staff department. intelligence side who are coming into the -- right now. there is a little bit of a struggle i think between ministry of defense that wants to control it. that has formal control. the joint staff department which lost control and would like to have some of its own people there watching it. i think some of that is coming back and then some of those people were intelligent people before. there are still intelligence people today. i will note, make a quick plug for u.s. china mill tamil. one of the interesting things we did is we hosted pla students.

these were not all intel people or foreign affairs specialists. these were their core commanders. these were their senior kernels who were in operational units. that was one of the few contacts we ever get with the operational side of the pla. careful what we talk to you about what we learned a lot from a little bit of exposure to the people. those really are the future leaders of the pla. the intel guys are not gonna be running the military. just know that that's one side benefit of miltonville's we got to take the interact with some of the operational people and take their temperature a little bit which was a useful thing to do. >> i think you would've had a certain element of intel professionals, political warfare in any interaction. i think in terms of china's expansion of non traditional security operations. its ability to deploy more

often with more capability overseas. i think we'll probably find hopefully more robust attractions with some of the operators rather than sars having it be a political endeavor. some >> thank you, i think it's important to continue to watch. who shows up will tell us a lot about what they're up to another doing. mr. link, part of our mission, our core mission is to advise congress. you describe some things that are pretty outrageous in terms of chinese activities on our soil. i don't have the legal background to say what the tools are to deal with that. it would seem to me it would be entirely appropriate to sanction the organization. sanction individuals. i've even now. what i would like is your assessment of our -- there are appropriate tools for dealing with this emerging

problem. if not, what kind of authorities should the administration be seeking from the congress? >> thank you, that's a very question. there's a lot more detail on that in my report. off the top of my head, we need to assess all the different gaps that are in our legal system that the mps is able to abuse. currently, transnational rest pressure as a term is evoke -- not really outlawed anywhere in our legal system. there is that. when people bring these cases or when our legal system bring these cases to court and think the nature. we're relying on a very outdated laws that have unaccounted for the advent of the internet and internet stalking and things of that nature. kind of getting all the different parts of the u.s. government and have to deal with this issue what is the fbi or doj or dhs and all that. so monies to lead a working group to assess what are all the different issues we have when we are bringing these

cases to court. then from there, how do we better shape or better right legislation with very specific that makes it much more easier for these cases to be brought to court. >> when you thank you. we do have time for a second round. for those on screen, i see aaron's hand up. jim can certainly go. let's go with this order then which would be jim, aaron and robin. >> commissioner. >> thanks, i have a question for jordan. help me out with the history of background of the -- when i lived -- many decades ago.

there was a simple rule of thumb that the ems s operated overseas -- with the public security. what was a domestic public security agency. when did the nps start operating overseas and when dom -- is this something of the last few years or has this been going on without us knowing it for all time? >> thank you for the question. i would say generally, the trend has mps activity is increasing officially under presidency -- president xi jinping. we can probably pinpoint 2017's most consequential year. their ways during that year, president xi jinping gave a keynote speech at the general assembly interpol where he referred to global security governance system. which is where all the security institutions globally interact with each other. he was very clear that this is much more the current system. calling it for it to be reformed and altered. things of that nature.

and then also that same here there was an internal meeting of top tech security officials pretty much given the marching orders we -- more active abroad and things like that. the database that i built pretty much show is that kind of 2017 is one of the key areas i'd also point to 2014 as another important here. that's an operation -- formally initiated. however i think the first data point i database goes back to 1995. so i wouldn't be surprised if there's other things that i've missed obviously. probably even before that. can i ask what happened in 1995? >> good question. i would have to look at it. it's either a bilateral meeting or a formal agreement that was signed with a foreign country. i can get back to you, though. >> okay. and just one other question.

you spoke of their overseas liaisons with foreign governments. does the justice department and at least as far as i know, the criminal division had regular visits to and discussions with the chinese government. is that still going on? >> i don't know off the top of my head. >> thank you. >> commissioner friedberg? >> i also had a question for mr. link. would it be fair to say that what china is currently doing, or has begun to do, is to export its model and its techniques for what they referred to as stability maintenance to like-minded countries? >> i think that it is definitely a push and a pull factor. there are several high-level quotes from chinese officials about, you know, wanting to be

more active abroad chaining police with -- but at the same time, you know, other governments, other countries have to accept this training and what this training. so it is kind of both,. export and import. >> you refer at several points to chinese dissatisfaction. you say beijing's discontent with occur rent liberal democratic order. you say that they're trying to put forward alternative global governance visions. can you say more about what you think it is that they have in mind and in particular, do they really believe that they can transform the global norms as they exist now or a road the prevailing norms to the extent that they are a reflection of liberal democratic concepts? are they trying to a road that globally are are they trying to carve out a small part of the

international system that will be made up of states that except their views about stability maintenance? >> i think it is more about trying to create international systems that are more amenable and safer for the -- to exist within and that is why we see things like the comprehensive -- it's kind of like the foreign policies extension of the domestic zone -- understanding of political security and things like that. so i think it really just comes back to part of a strategy that maintains political power at all costs. >> thank you so much. >> commissioner cleveland? >> thank you. i'm interested in prestige and carving out, as doctor friedberg just noted, carving out a space for the ccp to strengthen its position.

but i'm curious how economic interest high and all of this and commissioner bartholomew mentioning exercises with south africa, which i see is very much related to mineral interests. i wonder if you could identify partnerships or exercises where there are no economic interests, whether it's ports, minerals, or energy. because it seems to me much of the military diplomacy is fused with or twinned with these economic objectives. and we have not talked about that yet. and the follow-up question is if china's economy does not recover, what does it mean for the -- how expansive these undertakings may continue to be? phil, you sort of -- >> never show weakness.

we try to do some of this work and we are doing some more of it to look at whether partnerships or economic interests kind of -- the influence they have over military diplomacy or high level visits. it's been something of a struggle to find quantitative correlations. you think if a country has oil or has exercises. but it is hard to find those patterns when we do con detective data to dig into it. i think there is a broader sense of strategic significance, which does encompass economic interests, which does encompass

strategic location along china's sea lines of communications. and some of that is kind of baked-in. there is sort of a countervailing in bureaucratic tendency, so let's say you are the officer for the office of international military collaboration. you have all these your asian countries. and maybe i will focus my intentions on the one that are more powerful, more strategic, but i want to do something with everybody. so i think there are things that happen just to sort of fill out the dance card, as it as it were, that don't necessarily have a lot of economic significance or strategic significance and that may be why, when we do these quantitative approaches, trying to get at it, we struggle to find statistically significant relationships because some of that is just that bureaucratic incentive. we need to do something with

everybody in my portfolio and the significant sort of washes out. >> have you done any analysis that identifies the critical inputs that china has identified the need for, indigenous innovation and manufacturing? like lithium or cobalt or oil? and then, charted maps? those critical inputs, the development of ports and the military relationships -- because for me,ative studies, is not really come through. where it comes through, for example, is in peacekeeping, where china is participating in the sudan and south sudan missions and they try to govern south sudan in ways that it would protect chinese oil

investments there and the u.n. pushed back and did not let them do what they wanted to do -- >> eventually they push back. >> yes. >> so i think you are right that these are drivers but my point is when you try to -- they are not that tractable was to statistical analysis when they do that. >> in the strict contest of male to male -- >> let me add to that that most of what i've looked at has been china's approach to military relations with countries in the -- obviously the economic interest proceed that. but i will say that there are different reasons why they have security presence in different countries. you mentioned afghanistan, but -- is another one where i don't think there's a ton of economic interest, but there is a lot of interest in stability in central asia and building relationships with those countries, so i think one of the reasons it is hard to quantify these types of engagements in that way is that

they sort of nest within each other. anyways, it is a difficult question. >> yes. sort of a variation on what commissioner cleveland just asked, when we had our hearing on china and latin america, people emphasize this whole of government approach that pcp -- uses. i found myself wondering, they will tap into something when they want to close a deal. but are there examples where part of what they are doing is saying, okay, we will give you military training or we will do some sort of military engagement and that is what is being used to accomplish something else? it might be economic, but they can tap into all of these different resources and i am presuming that military engagement or military training exercise or something like that, is one of the tools that they can use, but are there examples where that is happening? i guess it is the same problem. how do you quantify something

like that? >> what we see is, let's say they're doing a strategic partnership in the process of negotiating, you think about all the things you can do, you will have this partnership agreement, a joint statement saying all the great things we are going to do. and the military security cooperation military department is one of those lines of effort and in supporting overall chinese diplomacy, i am sure -- they say that this country is a priority for china and what can we do in our lane to support that? but i am pressed to find sort of specific quid pro quo's. we will -- you know, there are things we can point to where they agree to take more students in the chinese military academies or do specific things like that, but it does not seem to be a big enough payoff to make the whole thing go, it seems to be

a bigger piece of a broader line of effort to improve the relationship with the country and not usually that i can think of the critical one that turns a no into a yes. it is more like -- it is part of the package. and they want something to be in that space, but it doesn't seem to be the critical part of the package. >> yeah. i think a good example of this is china's approach to relations with africa, african countries, and i think that is where you see that, it is sort of this approach of economic interests, foreign policy interests, and then the security, now they're bolstering security cooperation, but the number of new african -- it is sort of something that is not purely military, to get other access. it is all within each other. >> thank you. >> commissioner wessel? >> thank you all, i want to ask

and maybe, mr. link, i will ask you to start. but there's been a lot of discussion lately or for several years now, about technology surveillance, et cetera, and it is both an enabling and disabling technology. can you help me, as it relates to overseas surveillance, et cetera, how that might be integrated into the strategies we are talking about here? >> i guess that i would speak to that mostly from the capacity building perspective that there have been times when they have trained other countries in security techniques, so it gets to the export or import or issue. it's clear that the mps's -- >> is it also a projection

opportunity? there's been a lot of concern about enabling many of these countries -- but is there sharing of that surveillance data. or illicit access to it that has been discussed that might be enabling chinese capabilities? >> i do not know. >> any other witnesses? >> i have done a little research on the -- and i would say china, along with the quote unquote stability operations, but i cannot remember the term -- thank you, stability maintenance. the chinese are providing the leaders of certain governments with the ability to then -- that feeds into the narrative and also to the actual practice of it. >> thank you.

>> commissioner wong? >> sorry. i thought there was someone ahead of me. thank you for your testimony. i would like to press a little bit on your recommendation. and maybe i should read more closely some of the papers and the colleagues that you cite. but just thinking about this, you know, i kind of see here that a not even that creative prosecutor can find ways to get at this, whether it's violation in terms of visas for these mps officers that are here. they are doing kind of -- you can twist it into propaganda work. -- and a municipal or state level -- if they're extorting people with threats to their families -- if it is surveillance data breaches -- there are laws in the books, it seems to me, that if a

prosecutor wanted to go after this, they could, but put that aside -- that is the first question. the second question is, should this really be a legal matter or should we treat this, the better way to get at this, in a more clean fashion is, treat it as a cia and intelligence matter and we deal with intelligence operations in the u.s. and we don't like -- expelling other methods that we use -- and elevating it to be a political matter that we need to bring this up in political dialogue at multiple levels, at the highest level, rather than trying to pick out this minutely through law enforcement. i guess, are there really legal gaps? and is that really the best way to get at this? should it be more cia and political? >> i think that is very important, the way we treated the soviets, how close they could get to military bases, where they could travel -- >> thank you for the questions. i will start with the second

one first, where it seems like we need a more holistic approach. kind of doing both holistically at the same time, giving the -- i think that would make sense. in terms of the legal gaps, for my research process, speaking to some of the folks that are involved in actually charging these people and things like that, they were the ones that told me that there were legal gaps and i think other research indicates there are issues between not having -- outlawed as a term of art or whatever. that will probably help a lot in these situations. >> thank you. i think we have three minutes. i have a question. but i don't think it would lend itself to quick answers. so maybe if you would be willing, i can follow up for the record. so, with that, we will close our first panel. thank you so much o