>> with a not assuming that happens and we create stability there would they not simply seek another safe haven, yemen, other places? what prevents that? >> some of them might but the truth is the combination of ethnic, tribal, other ties to this particular reason makes it their preferred home if you will and other places will not be as hospitable as many as robust a network. sprick if they seek safe haven elsewhere would you believe the strategy would be inappropriate one as well in other words is that a sustainable approach? >> i don't think -- i think each and five must be dealt with in its own terms and to the terms we are dealing with the network and other places would tayler that effort to the local conditions that are allowing a group to gain a foothold. >> there's been a number of questions on the allies.

obviously the president's request for troops assume a certain level of commitment for our allies. where are we in terms of achieving that number and what impact does our failure to achieve that number or limitations placed on the allies in terms of what they can do affect our ability to succeed? >> i think our allies have stepped up tremendously and that with allied support and we are meeting general mcchrystal's requirements. and i think going into the future we need to work with them to sustain the capabilities that we need as the operation continues to enfold. splendid the request for the 30,000 troops assume that the 10,000 additional troops for an ally that the use of those troops would be limited?

>> limited in what sense? >> where they go and what they do and whether they are in safe areas of the country or not. >> again, i think that isaf has made use of allied forces extremely well. i think our focus and concentration has been on the south and east. many of our allies focused on the west and the north with a couple of them also coming south with us and east but i think the general mcchrystal has been able to take into account the various strengths and caveat of some forces to handle that. >> any time you do your assessment you try to minimize the assumptions because you realize an assumption that you don't have ground to its on if it unravels your plane could go so when general mcchrystal submitted the assessment last august and when the assessment was reviewed and analyzed here

in the washington area for several months it was based on the facts on the ground which was the nation's, who they were, what their capabilities were, with their cat and ghats were and what a reasonable expectation was were they going to bring in a replacement for sore at that time would they look to scale up or scaledowns of that is why the assessment itself as open-ended because those dynamics could always change with contributing nations. >> where are we in terms of members of allies and troops in relation to the 10,000 we assume? >> as we said earlier we have 9,000 that have been pledged since december. a little over 4,000 actually on the ground right now. >> does that take into consideration the troops likely to withdraw the allied troops likely to withdraw? >> i will have to take the for the record. we know which ones we anticipate will withdraw. they will come back with the they are going to replace -- >> let me rephrase. 10,000 troops assumed of that we have 4,000 of ground.

is that right? and we don't know whether or not that assumes the troops are about to withdraw? >> it did as of december when we made the plan. that is correct. >> thank the gentleman. ms. davis. >> thank you growth if you for being here once again. and i wanted to just go back to a concept we've been working hard on and i want to commend the administration on what b.c. has a greater interagency collaboration in this effort. we suffered through a number of years we felt we were not able to bring that together and that's happening and i appreciate that greatly. however, i think there has also been a number of reports that would suggest we are not doing nearly as good a job as we could on capitalizing on popular grievances against the taliban and for that to occur we need to have enough resources devoted to

the political and economic conditions and i know that you have certainly recognized that. we look at the report of a special inspector general for afghanistan and that would suggest we are falling short in that area and so i'm wondering in light of last week's discussion as well to the military and nonmilitary resources being utilized here coming years it probably a good balance in pakistan, 50% perhaps. what guarantees can we have that we actually i would think me to go beyond that in terms of nonmilitary in afghanistan in order to be able to capitalize on those popular grievances? where are we as you will get that issue and the way you describe the last week? >> i do think that the civilian surge has brought more interagency capacity to afghanistan and i think the

embassy has requested additional growth going into next year to fill out and push down debt capacity for the level to the district levels particularly in the critical districts where we think they will have the greatest impact. so i think that those requirements continue to be refined and they are going out and we are going to resources the state department colleagues and others will be seeking support from congress to resource those additional requirements. >> can you be more specific in terms of where you think the resources -- sprick a lot of them will be going to district teams to in power governments at the district level which is the critical interface with a lot of local tribal structures and villages to harness to the element assistance and support of that particularly funding for things like d.o.t. are coming out of aid.

agriculture, will fall is an area where there has been a vacuum and the taliban stepped in law programs of the local level were important to competing with them and displacing them. >> in those efforts, is it fair to acknowledge those efforts are not necessarily the kind of bottom-up efforts people are asking for the would suggest we have a pretty good understanding of the people of afghanistan today? >> each critical district is starting with a need assessment. what do the people need and want? what do they view as important? what do they prioritize? what do they expect and what will be most meaningful to them? and that is the foundation for a lot of the realignment of our assistance. >> some of the articles coming out now that are suggesting

after eight years we are not even beginning to do that yet would you challenge that and are there some examples? >> i would particularly the critical districts we've identified as key population centers, a key to production, a key to minds of connection so forth and in those areas we are pursuing and much more needs based integrated approach. it may be something that hasn't happened in the past but that is definitely where we've been heading in the last year. >> i would echo what the secretary said. whether it is the dst, omelets, prt other than a shell in the nucleus their tailored to the needs based requirement driven solution. >> dalia just a few seconds. general, when the chairman mentioned the achilles' heel, you cited two examples that are

the most difficult demonstration of good government and the cooperation regional lead. could you take a stab on a timeline for wind some of those things you think there might be real evidence that that was occurring? >> in terms of protecting a time when i couldn't but i will say that we have had indications in the last year for example in pakistan this though u.s. and nations in the area so i think it is constantly evolving and we've had good news stories. thank you. >> before i call on mr. mckeon, speaking about a good news story, and madame secretary, you mentioned agriculture a few moments ago, part of the good news story is the national guard troops then are assisting in teaching better agriculture

process to the afghan farmers and a number of them have been national guard troops who are farmers and that is what they do. it's been highly successful. >> my question is what are we doing right in afghanistan that we did not do right in iraq? madam secretary. >> that's a really hard question because a lot of what we are doing right in afghanistan i think was informed by both mistakes and what we did right in iraq as well as the two countries are. i think in afghanistan given the nature of the society we are doing a lot more bottom-up to

read a lot more building of the local district and moving up to provincial levels and appreciate the importance of incorporating traditional societal structures, the tribes, ethnic groups and seeking inclusive city, seeking balance that will ultimately determine the sustainability of the games we make so i think that bottom-up focus, the appreciation for the demographics, the cultural landscape is a key emphasis in afghanistan going forward. >> general? >> mr. chairman the other thing we are doing critically is recaptured the lessons learned from iraq and afghanistan and we are doing better at left seat right seat in terms of turnover on stations so we get a chance to have key leader engagements with those individuals would be

significant to coming up with an immediate and practical solutions in the area and i think we've modified training continue on at the bases and stations to reflect the situation on the ground as well as the recent success stories. >> i thank the witness. mr. mckeon. >> thank you, mr. chairman. early on in my statement and then in my questions i asked about the 30,000 cap and you both assured me there is no cap, the reason i talked about it and asked questions about it is that is the way that it's been reported in the press and the other way secretary gates talked about that the way the president did approve 30,000 the secretary had flexibility of about 10% that he could work with on that. i would like to go back over a

little history as i remember eight in the last couple of years. the president became president in january of 2009. he approved i believe in march an additional 20,000 troops and came out with his strategy and replaced the commanding putting general mcchrystal and gave him time to come up with a implementation of the strategy. he presented in august and went up to the chain of command. we were first saw about it in the "washington post" and we have been given that. we've never seen the numbers attached that he cannot with leader. there's been lots of talks you requested from 40,000 up to twice of reports about 100,000.

the president on the 90 days approved the 30,000 surge that would be sent to afghanistan as soon as they could be sent and then they would return, they would begin to draw down in july july 11 and be pulled out by december 11. in december 10 there would be a review and the drawdown of those 30,000 troops would begin in july 11. provo's correct statements? >> why would say differently is july of 2011 is the end of the 30,000 surge if you will and the inflection point where we will begin conditions based process

of looking to transition provinces that are ready to afghan lead with the associated implications in terms of changes of mission, potential changes and force allocation and some drawdown associated with it and i think a responsible drawdown of all that you've seen in iraq is going to inform the approach that you are likely to see in afghanistan. the president hasn't put a timetable on that except to say by 2011 we will begin the process and that was informed by our judgment of conditions across numerous problems is that some would be ready by then. >> let me also comment on one other thing i remember about that is when i met with general

mcchrystal, he said he felt 30,000 would be sufficient even though he had requested more based on all of the reports that we have seen. he said 30,000 would be sufficient but that the mission had been changed i think it was downsized. now the 1230 report suggests there are a total of 121 districts of interests but the joint command isaf feels the only resources to conduct operations in 48 of the district's. can you discuss this and what resources are we short? >> we did, and general mcchrystal had the view you can't focus everywhere all the time to be to have to have priorities and focus on key areas with your campaign. >> and i think what he was --

when he did his assessment in august, negative he was basing that on the strategy that the president had given him in march and that's when i think he was given the number 30,000 he had to downsize. >> i don't think that's quite right. there has always been an intention to determine where to focus in the country that will have the greatest impact on the country as a whole. >> if he had received 40 or 50,000 troops he could have focused on more of the country. semidey want to jump in on this? >> when the strategy was developed and the assessment was underway there were main efforts support and efforts and economy force efforts as there are in any campaign and ability to prosecute more than one main effort or to do supporting

efforts and do it faster is all driven by the boots on the ground amount of force is you have. we haven't deviated without where he saw the main effort and then as you move from what was a supporting efforts and brought it into the main effort how he thought the campaign would unfold savitt focused on the movement of the south to start with. >> we have agreement on one thing? >> if we were given 60,000 troops to could have done more faster? >> it's a reasonable subject. anytime you get more -- >> it's not a linear equation but when you get more you can do more. islamic it certainly influenced the president's decision on this was the force flow. when he was presented with members of the higher end of the range that general mcchrystal put on the table the force flow

meant not all of the forces would be in place at one time and one of the things the president said is what approach will get me the greatest number of forces the fastest and that was very much informed that the ultimate decision. the other thing i would say about the 48 district to be is that is based on the forces available, u.s. forces, coalition forces and afghan forces able to partner. the idea is to focus 48 this year and then grow the number next year and so forth so that again is trying to insure that you have enough of military, afghan and civilian resources to fully deliver in these districts over time. >> it's the first time i've heard the comment that you made that all of the 30,000 troops would be there by july 11.

some of the 30,000 will be by the end of this august. i'm sorry, the flow of forces -- >> 2010 all of the 30,000? >> the 30,000 the president ordered in december except one headquarters but mcchrystal doesn't meet until the fall will be there by the end of august and the fact that -- that is the president's decision. sprick had been a slow or a rifle and that was accelerated given the sequence of ramadan and afghan elections and to get maximum value. mr. secretaries said there were two significant caveat when we looked at the assumption and what you could actually put on the ground in terms of infrastructure and the enablers. you can get the troops to do the mission but the man out of the ground mobility or engineering support. >> i appreciate that. i just misunderstood what you said earlier that they would be

in place buy july. i was thing you're talking 2011. >> of the yearlong tour takes you to jul -- >> that is why i always understood so i appreciate that. i just misunderstood. thank you, mr. chairman. specs before. if there are no other questions let me ask what do you need from congress that you are not receiving now? >> we appreciate support general within the things we have before you now which are both fy 11 request and supplemental request your support for those two things would give the resources we need to implement general mcchrystal's plan and resource commission as an efficient. >> anything to add? >> i thank the committee in

congress for their support of the soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines the training and equipping and enabling weigel they are there and for those who bear the brunt of the bottle and are injured and wounded when they come back and as we mentioned last week, pakistan hearings negative ki loss for the latitude of the multi your money that gives more flexibility. thank you. >> thank you. we appreciate your appearance and testimony. if there is no further discussion we are adjourned. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] podiuy

secretary of state james steinberg. >> so many familiar faces, it is a pleasure to be back. one feels like they can never quite run away. you especially feel that because i have the pleasure of having so many of my former and current colleagues, now in government, including the former leader here. it is nice to see the former administration officials. i am particularly grateful to talk about the issues that you raised, ken. your observations are quite right. the change in our relationship has been the centrality of these groups and answering the questions that you post, are essential to understanding where

we are and where we can go in the bilateral relationship which has enormous consequences, not only for the u.s. and china, but also given the central role that both of our country's play in being part of the problem and solution of some many of these issues, like the economy, climate. i also want to express appreciation for my good friend richard busch. i am glad to see that things remain in good hands here. i think it is important to begin the discussion of our collaboration on global issues by reiterating cover basic approach under which president obama has led our engagement with china. we welcome a china that is strong, prosperous, and a successful member of the

international community. now is the time for our nation to join hands and to commit to creating a prosperous future for our children. a four-positive looking commitment that understands that we have to look at our relationship and a broader context. this goes to the point that secretary clinton gave last year, which is, given the nature of the challenges that we face, the changing global agenda, we face a world where collective actions are coming in and no effort by any country on its own can be the only solution. for us, the great challenge is to build the structures of operation, which include building on a multilateral basis institutions and mechanisms for the 21st century,

but also to have bilateral relationships with key players, beginning with our traditional allies. but also, to emerging tower -- powers such as india, turkey, south africa. all of which places chemical to the global challenges of our time. i think the press tends to focus on the day to day up and down to of our bilateral relationship with china, from time to time, claims near or virtual crises in the relationship. i think it is fair to say if you look back over the last 18 months, it has been a very strong and productive time in u.s.-china relations, and demonstrates that the two countries are able to work together to deal with these big structural challenges. that is not to say that everything is always smooth sailing.

any of us who have dealt with china relations would never expect this to be without its difficulties, but i think that where we have difficulties, we can work through them. where there are differences, particularly among means, that we can work through them through dialogue by building trust and finding common ground by recognizing, on most of these big issues, core interests is common between our two countries, and while we may have differences on the best way to achieve them, that strong conviction about the common goal gives us a framework in which to work through these differences. i will talk through a number of those issues in just a moment. i think if you look at our strategy, going forward, it has been to build a strong and comprehensive relationship that deals with a full range of issues.

we do not have the luxury of narrowing it down to a handful, but also looking at a broader range of issues which gives us context to solve individual issues that we face. i think it is particularly timely to look at this cooperation. in our administration, and i'm confident that our counterparts in china, are focused on working on a second to do the dialogue which will take place in beijing in a few weeks. when we think about some of the areas of cooperation, on her first trip to china, which is now a year and half ago, secretary clinton highlighted three areas which she anticipated at the outside of her time as secretary of state, would be areas where there would be great opportunity for increased collaboration.

the first was international and regional security issues. especially iran and north korea. energy and climate. the third one to response to the substantial global economic crisis, and the building a new foundation for sustainable growth. on all three of those, they have proved to be the core issues of our relationship. i think we can see we have made important progress on all three of those. that is what i will spend the remainder of my time talking about. security issues, something that we are focused on -- i think you can see there are a number of areas where we have made to the in progress. beginning with global security challenges like counterterrorism, counter piracy, the attempt to build a more sustained military to military relationship, and most importantly, dealing with iran and north korea.

if you look at issues like counter piracy, for example, the deed the engagement in china for supporting global efforts to deal with this demonstrates the degree to which china increasingly sees its part as having to do its share and be part of the global solution, learning to work effectively with other nations to deal with a common challenge. i think this is a welcome the element. as we understand this as a common thread, to commerce and safe shipping, the fact that we have so many countries working together that have not historical done so, it is a strong example of how china can play an important country carry role. on the military to military front, we have progress, although it is not as sustained as we would like. we believe military to military

cooperation the there. it is important to maintain the dialogue between our military. upon iran, -- on iran, the strategy that the obama administration has had, which is to reach out to iran and demonstrate our willingness and to seek a diplomatic solution to cover differences, particularly on the nuclear question, has proven successful in not inducing iran to agree to the steps we think it needs to take, that at least we are serious about demonstrating looking for diplomatic situations. putting the onus on iran to make their updates. we are also seeking cooperation

in sending a message to iran that its actions are not supported by the international community and needs to work effectively with us or will subject themselves to significant new costs. we saw that last fall in the important decisions taken by the iaea board of governors. now as we move forward in the security council, following up on the p5 +1 process. while we have not fully digested our systems to precisely the action of the security council should take, we have seen meetings and that a growing list -- willingness of our partners of their recognition that the time has come to take submitted in action. it is clear from their statements and engagement that china understands, and iran

seeking nuclear weapons is not in its interest. there is a need for a clear international message to go along with that. we are working hard to reach common ground in the security council to send that message to iran. diplomacy remains open. we believe that is the best way forward. i think that has paid off a very

substantially that we interpret with other members of the security council and the response to north korea's missile count last year and its announced nuclear test last year. that led to a swift and unprecedented degree of -- in a large the security council to move forward on new sanctions which we believe are having a significant impact. we face a very challenging situation and it really underscores the precariousness of the situation on the korean peninsula. i think we all recognize we need a thorough and complete investigation. we are determined to pursue this thoroughly and to follow the facts where they may. s. this will have an impact on how we proceed in dealing with the

challenge of north korea and its actions and not only on the nuclear front and other provocative measures they take in go how we perceive will depend on clarity go career and must live up to its obligations on the nuclear weapons program, of fighting with the u.n. security council resolutions, and will end its belligerent behavior towards its neighbors. from this process, i say china has played an important constructive role through the six party talks and in engagements bilaterally and in new york. we are engaged in an intense discussion with all parties in the region including china with how to deal with this latest incident. we very much hope that during this recent visit with kim douville kim jbng il to make clear-- kim jong il that we made

clear. that is the first basket on security. the second identified was on clean energy and climate. i do not think i need to tell this audience or any and why is that the u.s. and china have a significant role to play in dealing with the challenge of energy and climate change we are the two largest energy consumers, greenhouse gas in matters, and there is no imaginable solution for dealing with the problems of dealing with greenhouse gases without significant engagement and contribution by both the united states and china. it is now up to us to be the vanguard's, as it were, to a salary to transition to a low carbon economy if we have any hope to meet the objectives for limiting greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and the risk of

increased global temperatures. i think the evidence here suggests, and i know the people here at brookings are looking at this, but we are seeing a real change in the way the chinese approach this question from its historical position which suggests that it either was a problem but if it was it was someone else's problem and therefore not irresponsibility for china. it was something that could perhaps impede their economic development. we have seen in china's national plan and its actions in copenhagen that we are beginning to see china undress when we think are the key challenges which is to see them reduce their emissions as they go forward with economic development and put themselves on a long-term path to meet the global needs for what climate

science has told us is a sustainable level of greenhouse gas emissions with lower concentrations in the atmosphere. all this can judge the extent to which the kinds of the to ms. china is making on its own national level which is -- to which kind of emissions china is making. i think we saw in the final outcome in copenhagen a clear recommendation of china taking positive steps on each of those elements. we have heard a lot about those negotiations for those involved in kyoto. and should come as no surprise like any fine meals, the test is not how it looks while being made but how it looks coming out of the oven vigo -- out of the

oven. with some significance steps forward in copenhagen. all major economies, including china, or making commitments to carbon emissions and to report on mitigation efforts which is critical to give a recognition. we all need to work together with balance commitments by all major economies. that international engagement has been complemented by our bilateral work on energy and climate. we signed a memorandum of understanding to work and clean energy and environment at the last to teach again economic dialogue when the president visited beijing last year. we have new clean energy research centers, electric vehicle incentives, and renewed partnerships. we agreed on public-private

energy programs and clean coal development. these will have benefits to both countries and our private sector partners who are part of these efforts in go by we have in a substantial way to go forward and we have things we need to do at home, we are very much committed coming the president -- we are very much committed, the president is moving forward and committed to move legislation forward in the united states. we understand we need to do our part, but this is something we can do hand in hand with china to make a clean and predictable environment. the third topic that the secretary identified in her initial remarks was the challenge of the economic crisis and global growth. i think here you said the potential the partnership between the united states and china. this is not a g-2.

however important our two countries are, we need the cooperation of all of the systemic international players. the prospects for dealing, both with the short-term challenges in the crisis as well as the long-term challenge of sustainable global economic growth, they simply cannot meet. both countries did step up and do their part. china was a clear player in the financial crisis. this was the occasion of the president's first meeting with president hu was in london for the g-20 meeting. now we needed to turn to the elements that will make the best recovery sustainable over the long term. there requires china to recognize the shift to more

consumption in a service based economy. that is in china's interest as well as the interest of the global economy. and the greasy some signs that the chinese leadership understands that in sight. -- i think we see some signs that the chinese leadership understands me to resolve long term debt. that connects to the question of domestic consumption in china and other emerging economies as we try to sustain more balanced economic growth. one importance is the china moving to a market-based exchange rate. i think this is a principle that have embraced and has been reiterated by prime -- by president hu. it is not done as a favor to anyone country but it is a part of china's national interest. their economic leaders recognize this needs to be done that recognizes that these are

changes that take place over time but we need to move in the right direction if we want to give the global markets confidence that we are going in the right direction. moving towards a market based exchange rate is a win-win. all economies will be stronger. there will be a more sustained basis for china's on economic industries if we have balanced growth. at the same time, we recognize that countries like china and other emergency emerging economies play a role in this economy and we need their significant participation. we have seen the role of the emerging economies and the evolution of the g-20. china has the third largest share of voting in the world banks. we support giving them a larger role in the imf.

all these issues are very much on our agenda. the all demonstrate a lot of the key global issues that there have that -- that there has been progress. we have a vision of where we want to go. even if you do not entirely agree on the means. this underscores the importance of the strategic and economic dialogue building on our very successful first meeting here in washington and in this upcoming meeting we will have even more leadership participation than we had here in washington with 15 cabinet members and agency heads traveling to beijing. we use this meeting both to deal with long-term challenges and an action forcing event to help us move forward on some issues to crystallize the intention and get things sticking out of the

bureaucratic level to the leadership decision level. it is a great opportunity to sustain the dialogue between policy makers in both governments, for them to understand our thinking and vice versa. the ability to do this across such a set of issues that intersect between the strategic, political, economic, environmental sectors. we think in a more systematic and integrated way. this set out an opportunity of us to give long-term priorities for engagement but also to have concrete tasks. as with last year, they will have two tracks, the economic track that will be focusing on economic growth including the importance of sustaining employment here in the united states, building and

strengthening exports, and thus the opportunities for american firms as well as to encourage china to move forward to contribute to global economic rebalancing. on the strategic track, there are three pillars. the first is counterterrorism, military ties, the second is the security issues in addition to the two i talked about, and ron and north korea northiran and north -- iran and north korea. we're working together on common objectives. the third is working together for multilateral institutions on things like climate change, pandemic disease. needless to say, every one of these dialogues will raise issues and concerns and we will have an opportunity, as always do, to make issues important to

the united states such as the need to protect intellectual property, religious freedom, concerns a lot aspects of the military modernization in china, as well as the issue of the overall economic balance and exchange rates. we will undoubtedly be discussed these core issues like peace and security in taiwan and the need for china to have a deeper engagement with the dalai lama within the framework of the one china policy. on the economic and trade fronts, we will discuss concerns about aspects of chinese policies which we think have protectionist case -- castes. this could undermine market basket -- access to key sectors. this is an opportunity in formal and informal sessions for us to

have a sustained dialogue, exchange views in a friendly but forceful way about each side's perspective which allows us to move forward and deal with these issues in a strategic way on a whole, the balance is -- in a strategic way. on a hold the balance is there. i think the answers to most of the questions is that we are heading in a positive direction. the nature of these problems are such that our interests are shared in terms of the fact that we sink or swim together on issues ranging from global economic growth, health, terrorism, proliferation, protecting sea lanes, and other allies -- and other challenges in our common interest. we need to maturity continue support for china's growing role in the growing political structure. china's growth is a positive

contribution to the security and economic growth of the world and its growth and prosperity to not come of the expense of others. i think that is a challenge that can be met. and is one we are committed to try and work with china to achieve. we're looking forward to this sustained engagement. we will be in beijing in two weeks' time. i look forward to your questions. [applause] >> the floor is open to questions. please identify yourself and given the number of people who will want to ask questions. we have less than 30 minutes. make it a question and not an extended comment, please. we have some microphones. can get the sucker please fax --

can we get this up here, please? >> i am with taiwan. talking about the tie 1 straight, how do you see the president's recent remarks that in an interview with cnn he says, "we will never ask the united states to fight with taiwan." are you encouraged by his determination to defend tie one on its own strength or are you relieved that the united states will never be dragged into a potentially bloody war? for you concerned that they may be distancing taiwan from the united states? thank you sir. thank you, sir. >> we are quite encouraged by the direction of relations between taiwan and the people's republic of china. we believe a strategy of engagement and looking for a resolution is important to the common future. this is something that, in the

end, we have always believed that this is something best resolved through dialogue. we have encouraged beijing to make clear to respond to these through the leadership to find common ground and build trust across the straits. that provides a foundation for the two sides to deal with each other. this is a situation where conflict is in no one's interest. it is not useful to speculate what would happen in the event that conflict comes about. the goal is to avoid it. we need to look for a peaceful resolution of differences that takes into account the wishes of both parties. >> you mentioned sea lane security.

with respect to maritime corp., it seems to me there is a window of things like humanitarian relief exercises with the chinese, anti-piracy, and that folds into energy security. that me ask a question that i posed with respect to the global climate change issue in the first panel. the chinese have increasing interest in building trust and confidence or rather in demonstrating they are pretty confident? >> is -- as i alluded to, one of the great challenges we face is how do we understand and how do we intend to turn a proxy growing military power? we understand -- how do we

understand china's growing military power? because china's approach lacks the transparency women like, we do have questions about long- term intentions. that is why we want to strengthen the opportunity for military to military dialogue so we have a better idea of what is driving their decisions over military modernization in terms of equipment, doctrine, and other operations. we want the assurance that what they're seeking to achieve is in line with the broader economic interests of others. to the extent that china has a greater maritime capacity to contribute for humanitarian efforts is welcome. because there are other aspects of their modernization program

that are less clear, which would like to get the clarity about what their goals and intentions are to build the kind of trust between our military's and leaders. we want to understand what that is about. who want to persuade the chinese of the world we live in requires more competition -- and more cooperation not competition. this is a situation where we have learned from experience that the risks associated with those competitions are severe and no one wins the long term. that is why a dialogue is so critical. we'll try to persuade them to try and insulate that dialogue on subsequent issues so we do not use the opportunity to discuss areas where we have concerns as well as wary -- we have common interests.

miss >> great talker. -- >> great talk. on the recently completed north korean meeting, are you getting a sense that the chinese are getting closer seeing the u.s. argument that north korea as it is a is a strategic threat to china or are they still trying to keep it going? in that regard, as that incident has shown, regardless of who is at fault, it seems to have started a more considered discussion about the level of u.s.-south korean intelligence sharing and all of that sort of thing. do you think it is correct to be thinking about enhanced u.s. relationship with south korea in the military and strategic sphere of leveraging that on

chinese progress and to see our point of view on north korea or is that -- and i mixing apples and oranges? thank you. >> let me begin with a few general observations. first, i will let the chinese speak for themselves in terms of their own opinion on the matter. i am sure the bill have their own opinions. there is a strong understanding that stability in the region is in the interest of all of the neighbors. aspects of north korea's behavior, particularly their nuclear activities, is a threat to that stability. we have a common interest that binds these talks together to address that as well as other risks of instability coming out of north korea.

they're talking about that in twos, threes, force in the region. -- fours in the region. no one can feel at ease about what is going on in north korea. it enhances the common security of all of north korea's nabors. in terms of our engagement with south korea, it is hard to imagine a much more enhanced fasten the than the unique relationship we have with south korea on a political and a security level. the combined command is a unique example of the two militaries that are deeply entwined. we work together in a remarkably united way as two militaries to address those challenges. with the many specific adjustments is something we will take a look at. go in the terms of the need to

get closer, it is hard to imagine -- and that extends to operational, but on the political level, the level of cooperation and consultation between the united states and south korea is unprecedented in my experience. my experience goes back a ways. i am encouraged and heartens by the degree of we are working so closely together. they are making a strong contribution to our efforts in afghanistan, piracy, and other issues. it is a remarkably strong and bilateral relationship. that is why we work so closely together. it is why we are consulted closely on all aspects of the challenges on the peninsula and that collaboration will continue moving forward.

>> i am with the associated press. do seem willing to link the incident to the future of nuclear talks. is there any other gun into can give on what does the u.s. is prepared to do if there is some linkage to north korea with this attack? >> and there are all of those "if's" in your question. we will do this thoroughly, objectively, and with close cooperation. this is a broad based and objective effort. i do not pose to speculate on how this will turn out because we do not know. i really want the facts to lead us. at the same time, we will follow the facts were they go and draw conclusions from them. i do need to say that we cannot

be indifferent to this event. this was a deep tragedy for south korea. they are entitled to a full explanation as to what caused it. we will work with them to do that. until we have clarity about this, i think it is important for us to be careful about how we move >> how we move forward. leaving open any of the possibilities without pre-judging what the possibilities of this investigation are. i think right now is the time to be prudent in terms of our actions going forward. and we've encouraged all sides to be prudent until we know what the results of those investigations are. >> let me say it's a very serious issue. i was smiling as jim was answering because i was recalling back when i joined the national security council and jim sitting down and explaining to me as an academic i probably like to deal with hypothetical

questions because the administration never answer a hypothetical question from the media so it's a pleasure to watch you. >> china just announced last month that it wanted to supply two new nuclear reactors to pakistan under agreement which is probably not grandfathered by their nsg bring. -- entry. how do you think of it. >> the question is what is the status of this assistance and how does it fit into understandings with the iaea. and i think this is something that's still under discussion among all of us. obviously it's important from our perspective that all countries live up to their commitments. the chinese have said it's grandfathered. this isn't something that we have reached the final

conclusion of but this is something we're looking at carefully. i think it's important to scrupulously to honor these nonproliferation agreements. and we wonder if this is permitted under the iaea. >> isaac cardan from the national defense university. i hope you can expand a bit on your comments on u.s.-china dialog on afghanistan and pakistan where you said -- you noted that there was -- that increasingly figures into the dialog and that the dialog have been constructive. i don't know whether you said the dialog was on common objectives and interests. and i wonder if there is, in fact, a meaningful distinction. and just expand -- to dig a little deeper. is chinese investment or commercial activity consistent with u.s. objectives in

afghanistan and/or pakistan? and is it -- or is it insufficient without greater coordination on the political and security affairs? >> we have as i said had an intensified conversation with china on these issues. ambassador holbrooke has been to beijing several times. we've had conversations both in beijing and elsewhere. the chinese have participated in a number of multilateral meetings involving afghanistan. and i think our objectives are largely coincidence in afghanistan. i think we all seek a stable afghanistan that's -- that has an inclusive government that's responsive to its people and i'm concerned that it does not harbor violent extremists that can pose a threat to the united states, to afghanistan's neighbors and the international community as a whole. i think the basic framework within which we approach these things does have a shared set of interest. we welcome chinese economic investment in afghanistan

clearly creating jobs and economic opportunity is part of the long-term strategy for creating a stable pakistan. creating alternatives to illicit production of narcotics. and other sources of income for the afghan people. so investment is important. and as long as that investment is transparent and meets generally accepted international standards to the extent it involves assistance, we welcome it. and it's something we've had a dialog with the chinese about. but it's largely a positive one. similarly with respect to pakistan, we think that china can play an important role in helping strengthen the capacity of the pakistan government to meet the needs of its people and to provide an alternative to the extremism which threatens the pakistani state as well as the rest of us. so i think in the main, our interest and objectives are common. they're never identical in any case. but it's important that all of the neighbors who have a big stake in a stable and nonthreatening afghanistan work together. and we've been encouraged by china's growing willingness to

be part of that effort. >> all right. [laughter] >> just a minute, gaston. gary mitchell from the mitchell report. earlier today we heard a very thoughtful panel talking about clean energy environment, et cetera. and there was an interesting sort of factoid that came out of that about what happened at the tail end of the conversation between president obama and his chinese counterpart in copenhagen. that reflected what i think is fair to say is a significant difference within the china policy elite on questions related to clean energy and climate. which leads me to ask a question that has three component parts but they all should run together.

one is, are you seeing that kind of dissension on the other two components that you identified in secretary clinton's speech? security and global financial crisis. are you seeing that kind of a division or dissension, however you might describe it? second, is it growing or is it static? and third to the extent that it could be done, is there a way to characterize what the nature of political differences of opinion in china are like in the way that it would be easier to do, for example, in this country to talk about right versus left and tea party, et cetera? >> i don't know whether there's a chinese equivalent of tea party but i'm fought going to go there. [laughter] >> good tea. i think climate and energy issues, because they are so

deeply caught up in economic issues, obviously, have different impacts and different sectors of society, you know, at different sectors are impacted to a different degree by climate change and climate disruption. and the cost of adaptation and the cost of mitigation fall on different sectors. and that's true in any society. so i'm confident that there's as lively a debate in china among the various stakeholders about these issues as there is in the united states. but it's the role of leadership to provide an overarching framework and to figure out where the natural interests lies. and i think one of the positive signs that we've seen is that there seems to be a growing recognition that the leadership in china -- that when you put it all together, that china's future depends on china taking significant measures to address this challenge. there's lots of reasons why it's in chinese's leadership and why the leadership is moving in that direction. and i'll leave it for others to explicate their thoughts on it.

but i think it is significant as they think about this sort of contending voices and perspectives within china, that there seems to be a growing rate among the leadership to recognize that china needs to get out of this. it's on china's interest and to have an economy that will reflect what is the inevitable transition to a low carbon economy. i'm confident of that. and i think the chinese leadership can recognize to be part of the solution than part of the problem. i think it's important to remember that on so many of these issues that the effort to deal with carbon emissions and greenhouse gases is deeply tied up with more localized forms of environmental damage in china which also gives chinese a -- such as black carbon. and localized and environmental issues that come together and gives them a a strong

constituency as china's economic advantage the people are tired of polluted air and water. and a recognition that there's a cost to china from being scene in the internet community as not helping to contribute to this solution and it's an important part what took place in copenhagen was a recognition that china will be viewed in the global public opinion as just we will if we don't meet our responsibilities. so whatever the containing forces are, i think what we are seeing whoever is summing them up at the senior leadership there, seems to be will to move forward not as much as some would like to see but at least in the right direction on these issues. >> hi. scott with inside u.s.-china trade. at the end of president obama's visit to china last year. as part of the communique there was a mutual commitment by both

sides to accelerate investment treaty talks. and since that time the united states has been engaged in a review of its own bilateral investment treaty model. it was supposed traditionally reported to come out. give us a status report if there's likely to be any further acceleration of the talks with china which is stuck at a technical level? >> we're still working on it. [laughter] >> how about then in terms of your talks on indigenous innovation with the chinese that you mentioned you would speak about at the next sned. >> we think -- it obviously appearance huge impact on the united states and our firms and our investment in china. and we think it's -- in the long term it's counterproductive for china's own interest. long history shows that this kind of industry protectionism or these kinds of tools in the long run tend to distort even the country who's nominally trying to promote its own interest.

so we think that china's own long-term interest would benefit from a free and open playing field -- that global firms including u.s. firms to come and compete on an even basis. it's the core principles behind the wto. we would like to see china have that in the procurement field. and i will leave that to secretary geithner as he gets into his discussions in beijing. the chinese certainly understand our concerns. and we hope that they will be responsive because we think in the long term the system that china will want to belong to is one that promotes a level playing field that will bring investment to china by firms around the world. >> mr. secretary, scott harold of the rand corporation. thank you for your remarks and your service to our country. in interviews in beijing across the last two weeks, as well as in the shanghai the subject of sned came up quite frequently.

it was always highly praised and almost always immediately followed with, we need this from our side, the chinese side as an opening for our top leaders to give the room for policy innovation and relationships to be built at the working level. however, the follow-up would go, we would then like a secondary tract, 1.5 or tract 2 where our working level officials could talk with your working level officials to build the kind of ideas that can push up into that space that's been opened up. without wanting to put you on the spot, sir, i wonder if this is u.s. side would be welcomed or open if the chinese chide would propose it or we would propose it to them. >> first we would welcome it and we kind of think we are doing some of that. i wouldn't call it a track 1.5. it's the intercessional work that takes place between the kind of the big high level players. but we've all recognized that for these things to be effective, we have to do the work in between the formal sessions of the sned and i know

many of my colleagues are working on these individual workers would say that's exactly what they're engaging in. we probably do need to do more. i think we certainly -- i know that in at least one of the meetings between the secretary and state counselor dye we talked about the need to strengthen these ongoing mechanisms so that these are not episodic engagements. it's something we feel we're doing more on. and clearly could do more and welcome the opportunity to engage on a more systemic basis. >> thank you so much. i'm from a south korean newspaper. i'm trying not to use the term "if," but a hypothetical question. but once the final investigation report by the south korean government about china needs to finalize, can the schedule, the

transfer to 2012 can be rearranged? in your opinion? >> the only thing i want to say on that issue is that i don't see any linkage between the two issues. i think that we have -- we've had a long discussion and we will continue to have discussion about the command relationships on the korean peninsula but i would not see whatever discussions we have or don't have on that topic would be influenced by this particular incident. however itcologist out. -- however it comes out. we want to serve the interests of our two countries and promotes stability on the korean peninsula. >> jim, thank you very much for coming over here and giving this masterful overview. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

>> good morning. why don't we go ahead and get started. my name is richard bush. i'm the director of the center for northeast asian policy studies here at brookings. my coconvener today is dr. kenneth lieberthal the director of our john l. thornton china center. and it's our joint privilege to welcome you here today. the subject is u.s./china cooperation on big issues. washington and beijing will soon convene the second strategic and economic dialog. the first was last summer. and at that first dialog,

president obama gave a speech that captured his vision of our bilateral relationship. among other things he said the relationship between the united states and china will shape the 21st century, which makes it as important as any bilateral relationship in the world. that really must underpin our partnership. that is a responsibility that together we bear. i believe that we are poised to make great progress on some of the most important issues of our times. my confidence is rooted in the fact that the united states and china share mutual interest. if we advance these interests through cooperation, our people will benefit and the world would be better off because our ability to partner with each other is a prerequisite for progress on many of the most pressing global challenges. ken lieberthal and i happen to agree with the president. that challenges like the global economy, nonproliferation, and

climate change have moved to the center of the u.s./china relationship. and you can see that point in the joint statement that the two presidents released last november. ken and i also believed that cooperation between the united states and china and other major powers is the only way to address those challenges. cooperation is also the optimal mode of operation among major partners in an increasingly multipolar order. but president obama's vision does raise some questions. number one, do the united states and china each understand the challenges like climate change, the global economy and nonproliferation in the same way? after all, each of these issues has its inherent logic which our two countries may or may not accept. question two, do we indeed share

mutual interest on these problems? to put it differently, what's the actual degree of overlap between how the united states sees its stakes and how china does. question 3, even if the answer to those questions confirm -- confirms -- or conforms to president obama's views, how effective has our cooperation really been. does cooperation truly address the challenge at its core or is it just superficial? does the gap, if any, between our specific interests limit what we can achieve together? what is the likelihood that the current mode of cooperation will effectively address or at least contain each of these challenges? that is the purpose of today's session of u.s./china cooperation concerning climate change, iran and north korea, and the global economy.

for each of these issues we'll have one presenter who will address the challenge per se. what i call the logic of the problem. and then a second presenter will, considering that context discuss u.s./china relations specifically. we will start this morning with climate change. after a break for lunch, we will hear deputy secretary of state jim steinberg who will talk about president obama's perspective. and after that we will do nonproliferation and the global economy. so thank you again for coming. i now yield the floor to my colleague, ken lieberthal who will chair the first session. >> thank you very much, richard. it's a genuine pleasure to welcome you here today for this conference. i want to express my appreciation in advance to our speakers a number of whom have

come from out of town to participate in this event today. our first panel is on the major issue of global climate change. this is clearly an issue where the united states and china are the two biggest players on the issue. in a sense unfortunately. since each of us now accounts for more than 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions every year. as an issue whose kind of focus is changing, the u.s. historically has clearly been the largest single contributor, it's a peculiar term to use, but anyway, the largest single responsible country for -- in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. and since these gases remain in the atmosphere for a long time, that history matters. but as we look to the future, the u.s. has now basically peaked in its greenhouse gas emissions. and the issue is how much will we reduce those emissions and over what schedule? china, unfortunately, is nowhere near its peak.

it is on a very steep upward curve. increasingly, it's going to shift to china as a accounting for a very large percentage in the increase of greenhouse gas emissions as we move forward. the whole world moreover is looking at the u.s./china relationship to be a major factor in global responses to climate change, both in terms of mitigation and in terms of adaptation. the fourth and final facet of this in want to mention before turning to our speakers is that as you think about the u.s./china relationship itself, both sides i believe now see the climate change issue as possibly an area in which we will develop new levels of mutual cooperation. and in the process perhaps increase mutual strategic trust. but is also an area that is so early on and still so much needs to be done that it's possible it

will end up being the opposite, which is to say an area of inability to really get our priorities lined up reasonably well together and, therefore, an area that may produce increase in distrust. and, therefore, increasing obstacles to dealing with this issue overall. so that's why we're leading with this issue. the issue itself is of enormous global importance. the u.s. and china are enormously important players. but we are early on in engaging this issue both bilaterally and as the key players in the multilateral arena. we have two terrific panelists to introduce this topic and discuss it with you. you have their bios so i'm not going to simply read what you have in front of you. let me just note that bill is of a managing director at the brookings institution. hello, boss. he has long had a keen interest in the climate change issue. and, in fact, he and strobe

talbot, the president of brookings, this week, on friday are publishing a book called "fast forward" which is on the climate change issue and its global context. so if this panel whets your appetite on friday you can enjoy the full banquet. trevor houser is both a partner at the rhodium group and a visiting fellow at the institute -- at the peterson institute of economics across the street. he's done enormously useful work on china's relevant policies and on u.s./china interaction on the climate change issue. and he just left what we called a six-month stint, is that correct, working on climate change working on the negotiations leading up to copenhagen. so he brings tremendous practical experience and very fresh experience to the discussion this morning. we're going to have both presentations and then open it up for q & a.

each presentation will be roughly 20 minutes long and we'll begin with trevor and then with bill. welcome. >> thanks very much, ken. thanks to richard and ken and to brookings to asking me to join this panel. for those of us who toil in the fields of china's energy and environmental markets and policy, we all stand on ken's shoulders. and about three years ago when i provided my kind of humble initial offering into this issue space, i had the honor of ken come and serve as a respondent which was the most terrifying and rewarding experiences in my career. ken asked me to join a similar event last fall which i was ultimately unable to do because as ken said i was doing a stint in the state department. so i'm grateful that i was able to respond a positive way to this request now that my schedule is a little bit more my own. so, of course, everything i say

is my opinion, which i'm now free to offer since i'm not in the cone of silence of government. and i think what -- bill and i talked about this a little bit before. i think what i'll do is i'll lay out some of the context of where we stand in the climate change negotiations, u.s. and china's role and map out some issues going forward. both to help kind of lay the table for the conversation but also because i've been, you know, this close to the issue with no room of actual creative thought or strategic thinking. so i'll leave that all to bill. and since i left government for a newborn child i'm slow in getting back up to strategic thinking. the current round of climate negotiations were launched about 2 1/2 years ago in bali and indonesia. the u.s. and china were in many ways center why the international community felt it necessary to kick off the negotiations. the existing international architecture for addressing climate change in the form of the kyoto protocol had two

absences. the first was the united states. the largest emitter in the developed world. which over time it's becoming increasingly politically untenable for other developed countries who are in the kyoto protocol, like europe, australia, japan and russia to be in the kyoto protocol if the u.s. is not. they only had emission reduction for developing countries. and in the decade between when the kyoto protocol was signed and the bali conference in indonesia, they made it clear any long-term solution to this problem could not be a developed country's solution alone. so in indonesia the international community buoyed in a rise in both scientific convictions surrounding climate change a week before the bali conference started as you remember al gore and the governmental panel on climate change kicked off the current round of negotiations which were supposed to conclude in copenhagen.

and in the two years between bali and copenhagen, the international community saw an encouraging movement in policy and the politics and developing countries alike. right before the bali, the government in australia switched hands. the labour party won and that brought about more ambitious australian client change action and policy. and that, of course, was followed a change in government here in the u.s. and the obama administration both raised the profile of climate policy in its domestic agenda and reengaged in the international negotiations. and then in the fall of last year, the government changed hands in japan from the ldp to the djp. and that brought about much more ambitious japanese climate change targets. and the developed countries weren't alone. we saw in september of last year for the first time china announce economy wide client change-oriented targets. hu jintao speaking at the u.n.

general assembly announced china would be do three things by 2020. china would increase the number of primary area coming from nonfossil sources to 15%. would increase forest coverage by 1.3 billion acres. and would -- or million acres. i'm not sure which is the right unit for forest acreage. and would reduce the carbon intensity of the carbon economy by 2020. by late november they announced it would be 40 to 45% improvement. that's the first time china has ever made an economy wide emission reduction target. that carbon intensity target came a few days after the obama administration announced a goal of the 17% reduction by 2020 followed by continuous reductions thereafter to an 83% reduction emissions. after china made their announcement india announced a economy wide reduction.

and by the copenhagen meeting, we get targets from three major countries. that was pretty significant. over the past two years bilateral multilateral cooperation on this topic expanded. the obama administration reinvigorated a process started under the bush administration called the major economies forum. and that group of leaders in july of last year produced a communique that foresaw a 2-degree pathway with both developed countries pulling their weight. and bilateral relations last summer, we and our counterparts in beijing negotiated a u.s./china memorandum of understanding on clean energy and climate change cooperation that mapped out a pathway, a set of principles for what the two countries could do together. and, you know, as ken said in his introduction, this is an area that can either be a pillar in the bilateral relationship. it is one of the earliest areas of bilateral u.s./china cooperation. pretty much the first thing that

they did after normalizing relations was sign an s & t agreement in 1979 that was part of 30 years of energy cooperation or it could be of a point of strategic mistrust. and tension. the goal with the mou that was announced last july was to map out a set of principles going forward. and in november, during the president's trip to beijing, there was a suite of clean energy and climate change initiatives announced from renewable energy to shale gas to energy. we have all this kind of positive momentum and bilateral multilateral relations in domestic policy. none of that was translating into the international negotiations actually tasked with coming up with an international climate agreement. which for two years were completely mired in debates over both content and form.

there are a lot of views as to why the international negotiations have struggled. i think at the core, the most important issue is -- and the difficulty of translating that political will into an actual treaty has to do with the legacy of climate institutions and climate agreements and uncertainty about the future. you have three positions in the negotiations that are difficult to reconcile. you have the developed countries that are part of the kyoto protocol who can't continue to be in the framework without the united states. they need symmetry with us. ovens who under the obama administration is will to not sign the kyoto protocol be part of a new international agreement, a binding international agreement. and with willing to allow for differentiation between what developed countries and developing countries do. but insist if we're to sign a new treaty, that all countries need to stand behind their actions. all countries need to be bound legally. they can commit to do different things, but there's no

justification for some countries to be legally bound and other countries to be taking voluntary action. and for emerging economies like china and india, the kyoto protocol works pretty well. and while they have put forward significant domestic policy, their reluctance to translate that to binding commitments. in my view of why in the case of -- in the case of china one of the primary reasons is that while china is fairly confident that they will be able to meet the targets that they've laid out for 2020, they're uncertain what the pathway looks like after that. and if china were to agree to a legally binding treaty in which they were taking legally binding commitments and that treaty had some global goals like long-term reductions in line with 2 degrees, that that might be imply a future chinese commitment that's greater than leadership apparently thinks they can deliver. because keep in mind there's a significant difference between energy and climate policy. and other areas of international law like trade and finance. when trade negotiators come up

with an agreement to reduce tariffs, it's pretty straightforward how that actually gets implemented provided you can get your legislature to vote for you. you pick up the phones and you call customs and you drop tariffs. if you commit to a emission target you have very little certainty about your ability to achieve. it requires a broad array of policy tools, everything from mandates to pricing that we don't have much experience with how effective that is in actually meeting those objectives. all you have to do is look at the u.s. experience with our wind and solar incentives in recent years to get a good example of that. so people are risk averse. they're cautious. now, thanks to some significant engagement directly by heads of state in copenhagen, we were able to side step these ultimate questions of legal form of who's bound and who's not when we're dealing with climate change and produce a political accord with broad agreement on the key areas of substance and the pathway forward for action going forward. more importantly i think the copenhagen accord signified a

fundamental shift in our approach to this problem internationally. from the top/down approach that was embodied in the protocol and we get together and we allocate the pain and we negotiate our domestic policy who needs to do what to bottom-up approaches where countries come together and offer those up and compare and take stock of how each other are doing and going forward. that bottom-up approach also means we'll likely to see movement going forward in multiple forums. there will be movement in the u.n. framework hopefully. a series of decisions that can help move forward progress on finance, on transparency, on adaptation and technology. it will be challenging to make that progress because there's still uncertainty about what happens to the kyoto protocol which contrary to popular belief doesn't -- parties who are committed to that will take a part and that's a tricky hirsch but we'll also likely to see more work on climate change and

other forums, potentially the g20. and work on some of the issues that help address climate change though not directly like the deployment of clean energy through forums like the new clean energy ministerial that secretary chu talked about meeting here in washington. i think the other significant change following copenhagen in addition going from top down to bottom up is we're going from a climate oriented focus to a multi-issue focus. political support for fellows to reduce emissions for the sake of addressing climate change has taken a bit of a hit in the past six months not at least here in the u.s. fortunately, the means to the end of addressing climate change, the deployment of clean energy technology addresses a number of other ends as well. whether it's local environmental protection, energy security, economic growth or employment creation. those narratives continue to be important and powerfully i believe it in a number of large emitting countries that drive policy.

and i expect that we will see that be more and more important in driving policy in the years ahead. there's a good news story to that which is that if we move from an narrative how do we allocate the pain to how do we all take advantage of the game, some of the international negotiations get a little bit easier. instead of in d.c. thinking of we need to wait for china to move for us to move. if you're telling an economic employment story, then theoretically there's some advantage in being the first move in the space. but it comes with a lot of other policy challenges which i think are going to increase in their profile in the u.s./china relations in the years ahead. the deployment of clean energy in all countries right now requires subsidies. either directly from the government or indirectly in the form of higher energy prices. and so there's strong political support in all countries for ensuring that the economic activity created by those subsidies accrues to firms and workers in the country that's actually paying the subsidies. so in the u.s. stimulus package, there's local content

requirements in china. this is a trend that if it continues to escalate creates significant challenges globally. if we all make everything soup to nuts in the clean energy system in our any country, energy prices will be higher, employment will be lower and our ability to tackle this problem will be less, right? but if we're going to trust that if i buy things that china does better than the u.s. does, that i also need to trust that china is going to buy things that the u.s. does better than china does. and that requires being smart here in the u.s. about where we have comparative advantage. investing in that and prioritizing our foreign trade and investment policies accordingly. i read on the flight down from new york this morning -- there was a quote in a newspaper article saying that you need -- when you go to the negotiating china, you need to know what you want. and that's presupposes the u.s.'s role in the global economy. i think we're sill searching for

that strategic view. and in the clean energy space we need it critically. as that becomes the kind of narrative driving things forward. just to make a couple of more comments and then i'll wrap up. this driving policy through the cobenefits as-i call it, so whether that's trying to address security, employment creation, local environmental protection in a way that also reduces emissions at the same time and helps us tackle climate change, i think will deliver meaningful results for the next five or ten years but it's not a long-term solution. ultimately to meet the types of goals that the scientific community has laid out globally will require things that actually cost money. and our freedom of air -- we have a little bit of room right now for the next decade to experiment with what policy works, what works best. we don't have to have a top down approach where every country is allocated a certain right to it. we have a flexibility. as we go forward, that flexibility is reduced.

and our margin that error in terms of meeting long-term stabilization rules will be lowered and so we will need a top down legally binding approach to this challenge and that will once again bring us back to core issues that are difficult that were left unresolved in copenhagen and so we need to begin laying the groundwork for that conversation now. and i think that means a few things for the u.s. the first is that it means passing legislation. we will be in a different place in 2020 than we are today. chinese per capita emissions will be higher than europe's in 2020. china's economy will be significantly higher. the impacts on vulnerable countries will be much greater than they are today. the political situation we have in copenhagen will have a distinctly different tone in 2020. if the u.s. can't act and pass comprehensive energy legislation, if we can't demonstrate what we believe in what we say and it's possible to decarbonize your economy while maintaining prosperity then it

will be very difficult for diplomats to put pressure on other countries to do the same. that legislation needs to deliver financing to vulnerable countries. one of the reasons it's difficult for us to make progress today in negotiations is because the u.s. in particular and developed countries more generally have yet to seriously follow through with the commitments they've made for the past two decades. and so we are, you know, in some ways rightly criticized for moving the goalpost. we made some important commitments on finance in copenhagen. 30 billion collective finance for developed countries between 2010 and 2012 and a commitment to mobilize a 100 billion for public and private annually for 2020 from all developed countries. i think it's critical that we come through with that pledge. both to help the countries that desperately need it but also to build the credibility that will be required for other countries and follow suit.

so that's my comments. >> thanks to ken and richard for inviting me and putting this on. as i joked before ken beforehand being asked to talk on a panel of u.s./china climate cooperation by ken is like bringing goals to new castle. there's got to be a clean energy politically correct way of saying -- and in this case it's bringing coals to charleston, west virginia, or to china. 'cause that's really at some level the heart of the story or where it starts in both countries. just going back to ken for one second, i just do want to say ken's work on this issue has really been path-breaking both in preparing for this, i read

lieberthal and sandlow analysis for international and policy. and then ken's own congressional testimony last year, last fall on this area. . it has really laid out golf groundwork and showed ken's experience for a dialog of clean energy cooperation. i start my own assessment of this both looking at material interests and ideological or political interests. more broadly. and i'm going to be a little bit more down in the weeds of the -- how the countries themselves field these issues. i think he did a good job on the broad issue which i'll touch on a bit, both of which are in fast forward as ken mentioned. we have this available on amazon and on the brookings website.

you know, in the united states, we start with 80% of our energy coming from fossil fuels. we have about 20% from nuclear and renewables. but somewhere between 75 and 80% of all our energy comes from fossil fuels. and from that we produce under 6 billion tons of carbon dioxide a year or gigatons. china produces 90% of their energy from fossil fuels. and that creates about 6 gigatons. so right there between those two countries you have 12 out of the world's 30 gigatons. and by 2050, in order to come to keep that temperature growth underneath 2-degree celsius we need to get global gigatons to 15. right now china and the u.s. together produce 12. and we have to get globally to 15 in the next 40 or so years.

that's a huge challenge. it's a huge challenge of technology. it's a huge challenge of finance and of rechanging the regulatory nature of our economies but even how the economies themselves operate. and each country has a different set of material requirements, material and economic requirements to get there that end up getting teamed up with a set of political requirements to get there. so it's not surprising that somebody who knows a lot about politics, richard gephardt describes this as the most difficult political transaction in the history of mankind. i think that's actually fair to say. if you think about what it took to get health care passed in the united states, which is roughly a sixth of the u.s. economy, that's about the same size as our energy economy and we have to do that in 190 countries around the world. starting with two of the most politically complicated, united states and china. so from a material standpoint that's how the interests themselves are. they're actually fairly similar

but we have completely different economic systems. so doing it in both places is actually rather different. and through ken's forum and through a number of different efforts, both systems, political systems, economic systems, are starting to understand what it takes in one another's countries to make that transformation. so from an ideological, from a political perspective, both countries are adjusting to that challenge internally. and that's in both cases a political leaders and the public. the challenge we face in the united states as my colleagues in governance studies here in the united states have recently described, we essentially have parliamentary parties. that is our parties have become more polarize and more hardened around ideological positions. but we don't have a parliamentary system that gives one party or the other a mandate to do whatever it wants.

we have this bicameral system that is -- or divided government system between three branches of government and then bicameral in the congress which as we saw in health care makes things so difficult on the energy side it's done the same. what you've seen in public awareness on climate is a growing acceptance of climate change in the center part of the country, which is where the sort of -- the bedrock of public opinion is. the political extremes in the united states, the left has for several decades believed climate change to be real. the right for several decades has been quite suspicious but among the center you've seen a growing awareness and acceptance that climate change is a real problem. there's been a small set back for a number of different reasons, the issue has become politicized again. the science has become politicized but again among moderate centrists, there's still a pervasive belief that climate change is real. they don't know how much of it is manmade.

they don't know how much public policy can address it. but still if you benchmark it against 15 or 20 years, and advance in the belief. it has an impact of the political debate that much. last year almost a year ago, when the u.s. house of representatives passed comprehensive legislation -- one could look at a high watermark of bipartisanship in that seven or eight republican members of congress voted in favor of the bill, which was extraordinarily high. the reason that those seven of those eight of those is barack obama had won their congressional districts and they had happened to win. and each of them had specific reasons to vote for it. one was from a swing district in illinois. that member of congress

representative kirk has now -- he was for the climate legislation before he was against it. now that he's running to replace barack obama in the senate he has decided to oppose the legislation. another member from upstate new york, though, is a republican is barack obama's secretary of the army. he was already from a moderate district who was left leaning among republicans. so you see on this issue almost all republicans voting against the few coming over. and almost all democrats except for in heavy coal states a number of democrats opposing. that's what we see is the tee-up to the debate that's going to start happening later this week when senators lieberman and kerry introduce comprehensive energy and climate. there are again about seven or eight senators on the republican side who are thought to be considering voting in favor of this for a number of odd circumstances. but i think what you will tip to see on the republican side is what we saw on the state of utah. the hard right in the republican party is forcing members in

their primaries to vote in fare or vote against these kinds of legislation. and the same may happen on the democratic side. right now a number of democrats oppose climate legislation. they come from more conservative states or states more heavily dependent on coal and fossil fuels. we'll see whether or not blanch lincoln in a democratic primary is forced to be more in favor of climate legislation than she might otherwise be. that's the u.s. side. on the china side, climate change is not a huge area of public opinion concerns such that it exists in china though it is growing. but what you have is very, very high understanding of the issue among policymakers, though they themselves are divided on this issue. and that division broke most openly in the run up to copenhagen and actually at copenhagen itself when the premier -- when negotiateing with barack obama actually had his top negotiator disagreeing

with him in a room with president obama. and when telling the translator to stop translating. it was a fascinating moment where chinese public -- chinese private debate among policymakers suddenly became public and again if you're interested in that exchange go to ken lieberthal. it was critical as a moment for u.s./china cooperation on climate change because we saw literally the two heads of state negotiating with one another and at the same time turning and having to negotiate with the political forces that they have to deal with. and that is the sort of wrestling match that a defines the issue moving forward. what that means -- there's violent agreement between trevor and i on what that means for the next set of years. both the u.s. and china are not particularly wild about binding treaties right now. the reason in the united states is passing a binding treaty means going to the senate and

getting 67 votes. and that's a very difficult thing when it's hard enough to get 60 to break cloture and to pass legislation but getting the additional seven votes is nearly impossible. on the chinese side, again, china can sort of understand what its energy profile looks like till 2030 but beyond that to 2050 it's very difficult to understand and i believe it as those emission levels have to come down to get the world under 15 gigatons, china doesn't want to be constrained in that environment. so during this initial period both countries are sort of trying to see what they can do by themselves without having done so in terms of a legally binding agreement that they're negotiating internationally. there's actually quite a lot of cooperation between the u.s. and china on something like a copenhagen accord which is politically binding but not legally binding. and so in many ways the untold story of copenhagen was how the u.s. and china worked together over the course of a year starting with hillary clinton and todd stearns' trip right

after barack obama's inauguration. a number of bilateral contact points between both countries both at the cabinet level and ultimately at the leader's level both on the margins of g7 and g20 summits. and then also in their open bilateral november before copenhagen. and then actually on the ground in copenhagen where this two leaders together really did get together and make the deal happen. in fact, in europe, what you see right now are newspaper articles in spiegel and others talking about how the and you say china conspired to break up a legally binding treaty. at some level that's true but that may actually be a good thing for the climate because it allows the whole world system to try to move forward on this. so at the national level, and at the international level you see believe kind of cooperation. perhaps the most important cooperation is happening at the corporate level. where you see a number of different engagements of foreign

countries in terms of domestic legislation, subsidies and tax breaks and even -- i'll get to protectionism in a second. but when you see there are companies cooperating. so last week -- or two weeks ago i was in nevada for the launch of a wind turbin plant that's being built by a chinese company in nevada to build a wind turbin farm in texas. that kind of cooperation is happening in china as well. a u.s.-based company coda is building an all electric vehicle in china using chinese battery technology to be sold back into the united states. first solar, the largest solar panel producer based in phoenix is working to do the same in china as well as in the united states. actually doze new castle. -- coals to new castle. those kinds of things are critical but they also face

their own set of road blocks as trevor was saying. these subs dispose problems in the wto. perhaps the biggest one that's out on the horizon is in the context of getting domestic legislation passed in the united states. of it seems likely actually that there will be something called border tariff permits which many people consider to be taxes or tariffs against companies that have not adopted comprehensive climate and energy legislation. so if the united states -- in order for the united states to pass such legislation, they might say if a country like china doesn't do the same, those countries would be -- imports from those countries would be forced to purchase emissions permits at the border in the united states. some people consider these to be wto illegal. some consider them to be legal. for me the biggest question is when these kinds of things gets faced in. if they get phased in a post-2020 or a 2030 framework

it, appears enough time for china to establish enough domestic rules and more importantly, than the rules, the ability to implement the rules. so that one can say whether or not they've acted on climate change. it builds a time for the u.s. to act and to demonstrate that it has acted. if, however, these things go into -- into -- into law and into operation as soon as american domestic legislation goes into operation, then that poses real challenges, i think, because it's essentially setting a standard that we ourselves haven't proven that we can live up to. and the chinese haven't had an opportunity to demonstrate that they have the domestic capacity to move forward. finally in want to sketch out a few potential areas for cooperation that the two countries can continue to work on. some of these i think we've seen in the last set of months. perhaps the biggest is this issue that came up at copenhagen

that almost derailed the talks. which is the verification and accounting of emissions in developing countries. this is an enormous issue and of enormous complexity. the chinese reasons, i think, for opposing this, although, they did end up acknowledging that this as part of the copenhagen accords but is again the lack of governmental capacity within china to assess and monitor these levels of emissions and others. in other words, there's two ways to monitor emission levels. you can simply look at the fossil fuel inputs that a country takes. how much oil they import. how much coal they import. or mine domestically. but the key thing for carbon emissions is not just how much you use but how effectively and efficiently you use it. and that means going in and looking at the actual technology that you have in place. and the chinese have cause for concern about that because it

really opens up almost their entire economy to external monitoring and verification. in addition to that, you're doing it in the context of, though, it's a politically binding agreement something that could be legally binding. and there is great concern, i think, among chinese that they would be opening themselves up and essentially giving away their sovereignty. that is an enormous issue to work on, both diplomatically but also at the technical level. are there ways to monitor emissions that don't -- that are not as invasive as the chinese fear them to be? this is a critical set of questions moving forward. two, as i mentioned the trade issue. i think there needs to be a greater understanding of what this border system permit would look like both in the united states and in china. this comes to an issue that ken and david pointed out a while ago and i think really is a critical area for cooperation. and that's -- we've talked about national and international cooperation between china that is at the global level.

we've talked about corporate but there's this important middle ground of state corporation. the four big players is something that strobe and ied about quite a lot. it's big complicated federal or confederal systems, the united states, india, china and the european union. but among those four players, you have 60% of the world's population, about 60% of global emissions. you've got almost 70% of the nuclear power reactors in the world. this is really critical. and a lot of that -- a lot of the regulation in the united states on energy and environmental issues is done at the state level. that's experiences are. in the last 10 years, from the failed kyoto negotiations where the u.s. ended not rat identifying and walking away from the table but greatest learning on climate change has been on the state level where in the northeast collection of states also california in looking at and adopting climate

change legislation has gone to europe and learned from what's happening in germany, what's happening in the u.k., what's happening in france -- how they regulate on this set of issues. they're about the same size and same complexity as those state governments. and so that kind of learning between the united states and china, between the united states and china and between india and china is really critical over the next 10 years. it is a big place as well if you think about it from the standpoint of a governor where they can learn about international diplomacy and economic diplomacy in a very hands-on way. ...forget that when bill clinton. he really learned to talk about the global economy. >> and then finally,s issue of nuclears different. china is ramping up quickly.

it obviously has an important non-proliferation side. it has important financing nengss to it? it is a hugeulatory challenge? ey have announced they want to double the amount of nuclear regulators in the country. we have enormous expience with that in the united states. there is concern t we haven't replenished our own concern because civilian nuclear reactor s. as many as 30 permit applications for new nuclear reactors in the next ten ars. hug >> this is a huge area fora croperation between the united states and chopinuaati and one would encourage very much. so with that, i've probably used my 20 minutes. [applause] >> thank you very much.nk y v between the two of you, you've e really covered the landscape here. i want to open this up for q&a.

when people have a question, if you'd raise your hand. when you're identified, we have a couple of roving mics, and mi ring them to you. please, first briefly indicate o who you are, and then if you wat want to direct your question toe one panelist or the other, it please do so. want before i open it up, i want to ask a question of both panelists, and it is as follows. the next ten years will be extremely important in terms of in t how the world begins to comems to grips with climate change and in terms of thete u.s./china dynamic on thi issue my question is for respectively the u.s. and china, as we look d at the other side on this issue over the coming decade, what ara biticketest, what are the big-ticket items that we'really really concerned about?are there th there a couple of things that we should alatl be focused on fm an american perspective as we worry about china and vice

versa? ove a ten-year perspective. i divide chineseitigatn opportunity opportunities comes from reducing the amount of emissions through lower energy demand. thatothn terms technical efficiency and more importantly through the structure of the economy. the rapid growth and emissions that weave seen in china in the past decad was not the result of less efficient chinese production and it wasn't the result of faster growth than the decade preceding. it was a change in the structure in chinese economy from will

have a massive carbon dividend. much greater than any tech anylogical initiative or pricing policy. so that i think's the most important in the near term in the long term it's about changing the >> and there will be significant deployment of renewable energy, of electric vehicles. the core question is what they do with base power and ccs in china.

prior. that makes meeting the obama administration 17%arge l >> explosive development of shale gas on the supply side, but there's not a lot of structural demand, doing so can kind of solidify these energy supply systems domestically thae will make the long term much,uc much less, but all of that's going to require policy. >> yeah. so i'm going to compliment trevor, where trevor was very focused on the internals of our economy, i'm going to look globally. i think the u.s.' biggest worry

about china is which part of thh government engages in international negotiations. engg is it the cooperative part that president obama found, or is ita the part of the chineseor is it negotiating team that really sar the copenhagen process as s something that they could use tc delay domestic action on the part of china.esti and the way, the place the rubber meets the road on this is what happens with the copenhagen accord in future u.n. negotiations. remember, at the end of copenhagen, the u.n. failed to -- the u.n. body, the unsec, the framework on climate change, the big meeting that everybody attended, failed to endorse the copenhagen accord. it was noted, but it was not adopted. what that means for the negotiations moving forward is negoations movhe pieces of that short agreement, a pies o three-passenger agreement --thra three-page agreement, has no standing within the u.n. andingy have to take each of

those pieces and run it back through the functional committee system that we have in congress, and a taking one piece apart frm the other piece, say four or five go through, but three or four gets stuck in committee. china is the pivotal vote with respect to developing countries which is the great majority of countries in the u.n. so the u.s.' biggest fear is the progress that was made at bigge afeaisagen between their two it at of state ends up getting bogged down in the u.n. system.g in fact, this is what happeneds for three years after kyoto. it was negotiated with still three years left on the clintonn administration clock. the u.s. and e.u. got into a dot fight about what emissions emiis trading meant.meant. the negotiations actually broke down whilene everybody was br counting the votes in florida in december of 2000. there was a u.n. climate meetinf

at the hague in amsterdam, and the u.s. and e.u. couldn't in degree on the rules, and kyoto essentially fell apart right there. at the end of the day, the europeans end up adopting a year later what the u.s. wanted when the u.s. fell away from the system. and it was just, we've had a lost decade of negotiations as a result of those three years when the u.s. and e.u. couldn't agree to the details. let we can't let that happen inen. copenhagen. so the u.s. will look to chinaoa to see if it becomes a constructive force many the u.n. process. what china's looking for from the u.s. in the international setting is to not walk away fro the u.n.ional seinis t the u.s. started this major stat economies forum. maj the oru.s. tries to bring climae the nonformal u.n.ring sessions because the u.n. process can be so cumbersome.

and to the extent it does that, china's relationship much more difficult process seriously if china >> thank you, the floor is open. yes, sir, back heructre.ing here again, a reminder, please,againd briefly identify yourself, and if you want to direct youry yous attention to one of the other yr panelists, please, feel free to do so. so. >> yeah. [inaudible] china and u.s. both are big country, and the climate change

is national security, so i think there's the issue either -- [inaudible] or obama can make this decision. obama weigh all the chinese advisers in the airport, then hn kome to --let' tal [inaudible] and also this conduct by the united nations and all the united nations agreement basicis problem in the congress. i heard all the discussion in u.s. u.s. discussion forgot what problem in the u.s., and first

speaker talk about what going to be policy in u.s., particularly you mention in congress. and those are to whole picture. i don't know when we going to have a climate change -- [inaudible] >> excuse me, sir. we have a lot of people want to ask questions. do you have a question? >> no, i don't have question. of i only have critical comment. thank you. >> thank you. yes, sir. >> thank you very much. carl, georgetown university. i have a question for both of it you. there was some confusion atou cd copenhagen as to whether china had said it was not going to be whet

asking for part of the transfer of financial assistance or not.l so where does that stand?t of perhaps you can counsel a bit.s? because if china were to agree t to that, that would give tremendous leverage with respect w the developing world and would put a lot of pressure on. it w the u.ous. >> sir, i think that, you know, china understands there will be finite funds made available for both mitigation and adaptation. and what chinese negotiators have said publicly is they will not compete for those funds with more vulnerable countries. the man who spoke to the financial times can be a very a expressive speaker, and whether and r heisquoted or kind of going behind it beyond his mandate, not sure. but it's, you know, it's one thing to kind of acknowledge that you won't compete, to state publicly that you're not going

to take any of the money is a more difficult position to defend domestically. but i think there's a fairly wide acknowledgment within the l chinesey delegation that the financing that's made available, that more vulnerable countries ll be f first in line. >> i just had one thing to add n there which is that everything y that trevor said is exactly right, particularly about exa official government financing. governou know, the key thing that happened in copenhagen was a commitment for the united states to help mobilize $100 billion financing public and private. and a big part of the process is mechanism and other things. and it's undoubtedly that is also controversial with respect to china because china and indio have already benefited from those, are likely to continue ty benefit, and the real questionae moving forward, i think, once wh

get past whether or not the copenhagen accord has any standing internationally is howa much thosell systems operate and how much of the share goes to te china and india, and that is a huge question going forward, i think.huge >> gary, the institute foruesti >>reign policy analysis. how much of the chinese stimulu package went toward green towds hojects, and has it all beenan expended? all are there still opportunitiesex? for u.s. investment that theyll foght find in that area? and how is the balance with sor of the technological lead? the you mentioned the chinese yo batteries that were other examples of that.batter and thenies. overall, is china enthusiastic about building o trust and confidence now in this area, or is it more interested in showing that it's already confident in itself and sort of being aggressive? >> i also want to bring ken in because he may know on the>> stimulus package question. in

i actually don't know the answer to that. don i know a lot was directed towards infrastructure of various kinds.to th it's hard to say and hard to count. the one thing i do know about the chinese stimulus, a lot of s this stuff was already in line,d it got packaged as stimulus and sort of expedited. it wasn't that different from do ours in some sense.n and on the new technologies, i think we should start pulling ink weto the conversation as well because he's been as much on the ground as anyone. the one thing that i do know is that, you know, the chinese kw i investment in this is both considerable and likely to thi continue and expand over the to time horizon.and and how much of it's going to be used internally and how muchuch it's going to be used for export is a real question moving muchie forward. and it doesn't necessarilyit dot translate into emission reductions domestically.to is mayay simply be another export opportunity for china, be and that it's one of the -- and that's one of the reasons people are concerned if china is not nt

actually talking about a target at some point in the future.at but wi think this technology point is a really critical one,s but it's not yet clear from a ra climate standpoint how it plays out. the last question is the one pls that i find most interestings te which is sort of capturingost chinese intent. i think what we've seen is this is a country that is no longer a black box, that you can't really tell domestically what's going longer on because there are a number o different forces. for me, the most interesting tht thing that came out of post-copenhagen in china was ths debate that erupted not just at the negotiating table, but in ble weeks thereafter where you had chinese scientists essentially saying china had not committed to enough at copenhagen. but a number of industrialists and people who have always seen the mission for the government as spurring economic growth saying that china gave away theh store at copenhagen. so a debate is breaking outagen. within china on this issue thatg

issuet underneath the surface. people are probably not quoted as much in the press, but some people are increasingly willing to get quoted as criticizing government policy. within a month after copenhagenn olsentially tmehe central plannp authority said, okay, the debate is over. we're going to implement copenhagen, and that was a message to both sides saying stop fighting over this, and let's get serious about what it takes to implement domestically. in the last few days there was n "wall street journal" story a today the chinese emissiontoy. intensity backslided whereas they had been making progress oy emission intensity.ad suddenly it seemed there was a d 3% decrease as opposed to thes 14% increase over the previous year. so i think internally it's hard to say what china's intent is. there are different forces out t there. the government seems committedie to the plan at copenhagen which trevor aptly described as a ground-up -- bottom-up approach.

what does a country's leadershi think it can do, and let's use the next set of years to benchmark how well it does against what it thinks it couldn do. >> boy, on the basis of that>> e answer, i want to get bill to te join the china center staff.youl >> a point on the stimulus. i st ofof china's stimulus -- and i'm sure ann's going to talk about this more more this after. whether it's increased bank lending, it ended up going to state-directed infrastructure projects. otincrhat means, you know, a l of those were projects that ultimately could reduce the carbon footprint for china, so high-speed rail will reduce, you know, vehicle miles traveled anl produce bottle necks for coal transport where you have diesel trucks idling on highways for periods of time. all those projects take a lot oa cement and steel, and so the balance of the chinese economy between the service sector that

doesn't use a lot of energy -- uses a lot of people which is of why beijing wants to grow that e sector because it creates a lott of jobs -- and a heavy the industrial sector has swung with the stimulus in a more energy-intensive direction whics a mes exiting from the stimulus and transitioning to long-term economic rebalancing that beijing's been trying to engineer that much more difficult.th now, whether these projects havm a dividend inor terms of theires lower energy footprint over the kind ofm that compensates for the near-termntt blip that shows up this the the statistics that bill mentioned e kind of remains to be seen, st depends on how efficiently that investment happens, but that'sdw been the short-term effect. one quick thing on that.>> in the iu.s. we had a similar - the challenge of the metrics caf be seen in our own cash for in clunkers program, and china did a bigger one. some people argue it takesram. so fuel-efficient cars off the -- d

fuel-inefficient cars off the fe road. it kepe of the reasons we had lower emissions last year in the united states, 9% lower, was because our economy crashed. is cash for clunkers got thecrashe economy going in the auto econ sector, it's likelyom emissions will increase as a result ofmisn that. will the same thing played out in china where the program was even more expansive than that of the united states. >> ken, you smile when i say seeking trust and confidence are already overconfident. china's attitude. >> oh, i was smiling that one of them was going to answer the question. [laughter]as yes.ne back here. back hcould get a mic back here. far side. >> i'm helen, resources of the future, and i taught environmental science in western china for two years, and i'm very aware of how alert the yeas universities all around chinaow

and the students are to the need for fighting climate change. however, i'm always appalled in the discussions here in then united states how seldom it's mentioned -- and you have not. mentioned -- that per capita the emissions in china are one quarter the emissions in the united states, and it seems to me that the effort here should be much stronger than in china where there's so much more poverty especially in the west. and the need for development is so much greater, it seems to me. the need for efficiency here.or and, again, the need for technical cooperation on our part with chinese is so much, is very strong. er's the one-quarter per capitav that keeps -- >> of course, the problem with r >>r capita is the number of capitas also makes a difference [laughter] capita and so you end up with, youmake know, all of us have responsibilities here. all i don't know -- have >> let me comment on that.

so that's true, of course, and >>o that' that's part of thes equity debat that makes this so challenging.s india would, you know, would offer a target, has offered a target that our per capita taeth emissions will never exceed the offerea targ china will not take that dealevr because they know its per capita emissions will exceed europe shortly. like 2020 time frame, and that . would impose a constraint that would be more ambitious than they'd like to see. from a u.s. negotiating perspective, the view is not that china should do the same thing as the u.s. clearly, china's in a differente place in terms of economic development.early chi clearly, the kind of level of place. ambition that should be expectel from china is less.uld be the view is that whatever ishins appropriate for china, that china should be bound. that this binary distinction between developed and developing countries that was drawn up in 1992 is out of date. because there are a number of countries that are treated as developed who have per capita income and per capita emissions

far lower than a vast swath of s developing countries. if you look at the 20 poorest dg developed countries that were yk classified as developed in 199 # # -- 1992. including singapore, all of the middle east and a large swath of waerging economies as well. lars and so i think that it's appropriate to have a conversation about equity, about per capita emissions, aboutout income levels and about what ann appropriate allocation of responsibility is. but that has to be aibility is. conversation that's based on be more than everybody who's stuck in that annex one treaty that we in signed in 1992 gets to take action, and everybody who's not has no obligations. take there has to be a gradient beyond that. >> yeah. i think that's exactly right. again, the basic point is not only well taken, it's incorporated into everything that people are talking about right now. the united states has gone on record at the copenhagen accords

of saying it's going to cut itsc emissions by 80 %.80%. everybody accepts that chinesetf emissions will continue to grow because their per capita b emissions are going to continue to rise as they rise.ontinue but per capita emissions as theo only standard is a troubled standard for a couple differenty standard i right now, for instance, per std unit of economic output china o actually reduces, produces morey emissions than the united stateu does. and india's slightly more thands the united states. so as their economic output than continues to rise, they're stilt much more inefficient than weuee are. t and then as ken said, the number of capitas really does matter, r and this is where sort of population growth is an important issue. where i wrote an op-ed on this in "the wall street journal" last ed summer, and a number of my friends in india teased me as the man who thinks there are toe many indians. that's not the case at all. a te

but it does make a difference if china or india grow to two billion people by 2050 as opposed to staying in a 1.4, 1.5 range because those extra half billion people if they each produce, say, five tons of carbon a year, that's a lot of carbon that they're putting up this the atmosphere. so these formulas are really quite tricky, and simply using per capita as a standard as per opposed to per capita emissions per unit of gdp which is really where the conversation is moregd going to is probably ano important distinction.obably imt >> if the i could just add a>> t footnote to trevor's comment. bill and i were at a conferences in aspt en last summer which brought in people from around the world. at the end of that conferenceas. this the summary session, one oc the key representatives fromth africa got up and really was angry, and he said, you know, every time i hear china grouped

with africa on climate change, i get very upset. we have nothing in common with china on climate change, w nothing.aveothing they have technology that we on don't have, they have they h manufacturing that we don't have, they have wealth that wee ton't have, they create damagela that we don't create.have. we're the ones that suffer. as soon as you put us in the ons same category, we're dead. so don't do it.category all it does is highlight the reality that on this issue the world is not developed or developing, the world is enormously more complicated than that based on how many people you have, on the structure ofrmy your economy, on your growth rates, all kinds of things. you can structure your equity arguments almost to suit yourself on this.ity argumeow, there's an angle that anyone can take to make themselves look better. but the real estate is if we -- reality is if we fall considerably short of having the top 15 carbon emitters in theone world get really serious about

this issue, we're all in deep, s deep trouble. yes, sir. >> thanks. gary mitchell from the mitchell report, and this is a question for any or all members of the panel. i want to probe a little bit >>re on the domestic politics of domesticue in both countries. and i won't use the term drill down on that subject, but i'dpos like to probe it a little bit. >> drill, baby, drill. [laughter] >> interested to get your i sessment of where each of these two countries stand of respectively on the two components of this politically. one is the awareness and componen of tht the problem exists which is arguably to say on the science but more than that. second, it is then the policy

components of then what do we do about it? so in china and the united i states you're reading today, you know, if we had a scale of 1-10f 1 being it's all hocus pocus, 10 is sort of the bill mckicken, of it's too late anyway, where are ywe, where are the chinese,an where are we on that component? and second, then depending upon your answers to that, where arep we on the second piece of that a which is the capacity to put together policies that will actually get something done?e'll >> so i'll take the first crack at those numbers. i would say in the u.s. in terms of faith of climate science and belief of action we're probably at a 4 out of 10, i would say, down from maybe a 6 last year.

and i'd say china's higher thanm that, probably 6 or 7. i think there's an intermediate step that you have to look ati i between that question and themet policy action which is wherek does it fit on the priority list. so for china i think there's a much greater belief in the science and in the long-term effects. but when you stack it up in priorities, i think they come down somewhere slightly below where we do even though we're ae 4 on the belief scale. wee but thate good news is that, asf said in my remarks, when you is start to a translate that into policy, there are a number of st other issues that have the samet means as addressing climatether change where both countries score much higher. so energy security trying to find what the industries that are going to create economic activity and employment coming out of a recession, local and environmental protection, all oa those score very high in china and continue to score very high in the u.s.recession. so i think in either country a policy package will be motivated

by that collection of policy goals with climate probably being if not last, next to last in what ultimately gets a bill n moved. i would not be surprised if when senators kerry and lieberman release their bill on wednesdayf climate change is mentioned ther pretty far down in the presss release. energy security and economic growth and job creation will be the headline pieces. >> not much of a disagreement a with trevor. i'd probably rate it a little bit higher in the u.s. i think the polls always ask the question differently, but generally, the numbers had been about 75% of americans thought a it was either serious ors had be somewhat serious question two o years ago, and now the number's around 58%.io but when you actually drill now down, are you willing to is actually pay something for thato the numbers get sort of scary n where trevor is. that said, i tend to be a bit of an optimist on these things.

there's two things drivingn action in the unite.mist one. is that -- united states.nu one is that there are quite anue large number of l moderately-inclined legislators on the republican side thatatel actually understand the scientific challenge despite alt the climategate stuff about the e-mail files from last year. scc you know, people like dick lug r and lindsay graham and others who identify with the issue ando in pathrticular see the next generation of americans, college-age students who are very high resonance for the issue. remember, we're an increasingly college-educated society. college graduates increasingly believe climate change is real, and the younger they are the more so. and that extends all the way down to grade school level. and all ttory i always tell is getting into our prius on sunday and going to church one time anr my 6-year-old yelling at me for turning on the air-conditioningd when i explained not only is this an energy-efficient car and

a living, she just her isuldn't tolerate that. we were polluting the environment. and we send our kids to a publie school in the middle of virginia which is sort of bed rock liberal america. you know, this is -- i think is that lindsey graham himself said this as articulately as anyone could. for him it's a values issue, and it's a next generation values issue. in that sense while i think the oil spill in the gulf of mexicot on the one hand makes this a mex much more difficult deal to pult together bechiause an important part of the coalition for together.he bill in the senate prns forhat includes provisions for drill, baby, drill for more offshore drilling, there is more of a moral charge that i think t the oil spill just helps drawha attention to.pill the chinese side is just very hard to really get arms around because, you know, it's just very hard to make generalizations about a country

with 1.# million people -- 1.2 billion people, 600 or 500 million that live in rural m poverty who are literally dying to move into the cities to work in factories. yet there is certainly a government commitment to the issue, and the thing that drives that is the extraordinary impact that natural resources and natural environment play on natl chinese society. on having that many people living in rural poverty particularly ie western china which is a prettyr air rid place -- arid place. fen i a remember ken in his office showing me the relief map of offihowing when you look at how much the country depends on yout those himalayan resources even if the ipcc got the date wrong out whenen they could expect the himalayan delay scherrs to disappear -- glaciers to disappear, the fact that runofft

from those mountains would be f effected in a warmer world is aa big issue that really worries tt the chinese, that water tables e are dropping in the north of inh china. you know, it's just an enormous set of challenges. it appears from everything thato i've heard chineserm authoritiea really believe that this is a ev coming crisis, and they want toe get ahead of it. and t they face the challenge of an an expectation of 7-10% economic growth a year to just keep up 1% with that flow of people from kp the rural countryside.low ofple and that's the biggeste. constraint. to the extent that they can steer that economic growth in a th green way, i think that's terrific for them, but they also know that they have to keep the economy youing, and they -- growing, and they don't want to impose any constraints on it. >> on political communication and social networking. david plouffe was the campaign manager for the 2008 obama presidential campaign, and steve schmidt, a senior strategist and adviser for john mccain, were among the speakers at a forum hosted by the university of

delaware. this part is an hour, 20 minutes. >> the university of delaware's first global dimension symposium sponsored by the institute for global studies and the center for political communication. i'm ralph begleiter. it's hard to believe, but it was just six years ago in 2004 that using the internet to create interest in campaign rallies and door to door canvassing of the public was a novelty. we marveled at a candidate named howard dean scoring big donations and big audiences at something he called at the time meet-ups that were organized almost completely by high technology e-mail. youtube had not yet been created, facebook had just been born but was not yet a political communication factor, twitter wasn't even a twinkle in the ideas, in the minds of its young developers. just four years later in 2008, social networking technologies became proven communication tools for fund raising, campaign

rallies, distribution of political documents, position papers, speeches and other campaign information, grassroots advocacy and much, much more. in 2008 the obama campaign bypassed legacy news organizations and used cell phone text messaging for the first time to announce its candidate's choice for vice president. the university of delaware's own joe biden. that's an applause line. [applause] just two years ago a single internet advertisement called obama girl was viewed on youtube by tens of millions of potential voters even before the democratic party had chosen its nominee. the video was created and posted completely outside traditional campaign operations by amateurs, not by campaign professionals. twitter, born during the closing weeks of the 2008 campaign, has

proliferated dramatically since then and is poised to play a central role in this year's elections. not to mention the fact that we have two twitter feeds operating in this room tonight. at least two, shall we say. maybe some of you are tweeting on your own. but this is a global phenomenon. it's not just in the united states as we'll see tonight. arab students in my video conference class in dubai this semester discuss politics and other touchy topics on facebook. in iran last year's election was marked by extensive use of social networking tools by opposition forces, by the iranian government itself, and by exiled iranians and others to shape the election environment often from thousands of miles away. my colleagues here at ud say there was better information about the election campaign in botswana last year on facebook than in the traditional media. in china social networking is

used by the government to shape public opinion. in burma the military regime literally shut down the internet during a natural disaster last year to prevent social networking citizens from disseminating information and images embarrassing to the government. our guests tonight are well equipped to help us understand this political communication revolution. we'll hear from them, and then we'll take your questions. i'm pleased to welcome back two engineers of the 2008 u.s. presidential campaign, david plouffe who was barack obama's campaign manager and who sent out that famous joe biden vice presidential text message. some of you may still have it on your phones. [laughter] david was a political science here at ud in the late 1980s, and sheave schmidt, who was john mccain's top campaign strategist in 2008 was also a political science major at ud in the late '80s and early

'90s. please welcome david and steve back to the university of delaware. [applause] also with us tonight is mona eltahawy. she was born in egypt and reported for london's guardian newspaper and for "u.s. news & world report". reuters sent her -- [inaudible] where she became the first journalist to live and work for a western news agency in israel. she's also lived in saudi arabia and britain. mona's middle east commentaries have appeared in "the washington post," the jerusalem report as well as a number of arab newspapers and web sites. mona calls herself a proud liberal muslim. she was awarred the cutting edge -- awarded the cutting edge prize in 2006 because her writing and observations have broken the mold in reporting about the arab world.

she's a graduate of american university in cairo. and joining us through social networking technology live from kuala lumpur, malaysia, is jacqueline ann surin, co-founder of a web site called -- [inaudible] in malaysia whose motto is the point of the story in a nutshell. jacqueline co-founded malaysia votes.com, a web site that plays a genuinely revolutionary role in malaysia's 2008 national election as we'll hear in a few moments. jacqueline has written for two major malaysian newspapers, and i guess i'll say here that we hope the social networking technology works just fine tonight, but if something fails, we'll just plow on and hope we can recover well. first, i'd like to ask each of our panelists to make some opening remarks, comment on the social networking revolution, and then we'll go to q&a.

david, if you would, please. >> thanks. it's great to be here at delaware. obviously, the 2008 campaign was probably the first one where we saw social networking specifically. i'm not just talking about the internet, but social networking specifically play an instrumental role. i think it really, however, is going to seem prehistoric compared to now future elections are impacted by social networking as more and more people spend a lot of their timesharing information with each other and using social networking as their primary source of information. you know, in 2008 social networking was the way a lot of people got involved in our campaign. we had our own social networking site called my barack obama.com, and that was the place where most people involved in our campaign at a volunteer and contributor level spent their time. so while there's plenty of people on facebook and myspace and other social networking sites who were talking about that campaign trying to enlist people, most of the work was done there.

that was great from our perspective because, obviously, we could see all of it. it was very transparent. we could see what work was being done in what states and what precincts and what level of success. it became a home for people. it was a place where they could find out any information they needed, tools to help the campaign. so it was a place where people gathered to share information, it's how a lot of people asked other people to contribute to the campaign, it's how our local organizers would be on our social networking site to ask everybody let's say you were in akron, ohio, our volunteer leader would ask everybody who was signed up in the area to say we've got a special weekend on saturday. we're trying to knock on 20,000 doors in the area, we really need you to come on. so when i grew up in politics, if you were trying to get people to give money or volunteer, you called them on the phone. as we got into the last decade, more and more often you'd e-mail

people to come to events or volunteer. so much of that happened through social networking sites. even in 2008, it's even more pronounced now. huge segments of our lek rate get their information exclusively through social networking. they will -- now, what's interesting is a lot of the information that is shared with them or they share with others can still be mainstream news. it could be i saw this article, you know, that rebuts a fallacy about health care. i saw this interesting speech that a politician gave. it's interesting, this isn't just people's opinions on social networking sites. they're oftentimeses referencing what we would consider third party sources, but if your engaged in politics -- and i can only speak about this country, not others where it's even more pronounced elsewhere -- if you're trying to reach people now, you're increasingly going to have to occupy this space in a very forcible way. this can't be, well, there's an old adage in politics, particularly if you're being

attacked, let's say, or there's a negative story. well, if it's not on the front page of the newspaper or doesn't lead the television newscast, then let's not worry about it. well, it may not be on the front page of the newspaper, but there could be millions of people having a discussion about it on facebook and other social networking sites. so the old rules don't apply. so i think going forward, you know, you have to understand, first of all, sort of nonpartisan voters, just an average swing voter you're going to have to reach more and more of them through social networking because less and less of them are going to be available exclusively through conventional means. secondly, and this was a big part of the obama campaign, if the you're trying to build a powerful grassroots campaign, so you have people sharing messages, being your message ambassadors, organizing volunteers, giving money, more and more of that is going to be done on social networking especially with more and more people gravitating to mobile devices. you know, more and more of us are using our mobile devices, our cell phones, you know, to check the internet, to e-mail, to be on facebook.

this is going to increase extraordinarily fast in the next few years so that what we did in 2008 where almost everybody on my president obama.com or on facebook was on a computer tethered to their desk or their home office, people are going to be untethered. they'll be walking down the street, walking to an event like this and be able to share information, get information, and i think that it's going to really put a premium out there. and this is great for democracy, i think, because it's going to be easier to get information to people, people are going to be able to share that information more readily and find out anything they want to know. last thing i'll say, one of the great barriers in participation for young voters and first-time voters, 15-20 million people voted for the first time in the 2008 election. truth is, amongst the people who had voted in the '04 kerry/bush election, you know, mccain and obama roughly tied.

it was the 15-20 million new voters that caused us to win. and these were not all young, not politically-attuned people. and it's so important to be able to get them just basic information about how to participate. and they are very digitally sensitive, right? they're not going to call an 800 number. if they can't find an answer right away on their computer, internet or cell phone, you're going to lose them. they want to know in five seconds, how do i register to vote? can i vote early? they want basic information in addition to information about the candidate's position. so think about that. that's going to open up the process to people because what i still see in a lot of research is people who are thinking about the 2010 election even those that voted in '08 say, well, i'm not sure when the election is, or i'm not sure what offices are on the ballot. do i vote in the same place as i did in '08? or i voted by mail, can i do that in '10?

if they can't find this information instantaneously, you'll have missed them. i think digital technology broadly but social networking specifically i think has already revolutionized so many aspects of our society. you know, our economy, the way people get information, it's made huge impact on our politics, and i think over the coming decade it's going to be just in a more profound sense that will be the case. >> david, let's try an experiment here. how many of you raise your hands if you know there are primary elections in the united states today. today. >> what states? >> anybody know what states? >> indiana. >> indiana. >> north carolina. >> north carolina. >> tennessee. >> what's the other one? >> okay. what's the other one? >> ohio. that was good. >> all right. primary elections today. this is a very informed audience. you talked about, you talked about old rules don't apply. are there any rules?

>> sure is. >> with these new technologies? >> well, i think -- listen, i think that your message whether it be in a 60-second television ad or in an e-mail or social networking post needs to be authentic, it ought to be true. particularly now because people police this. we've got citizen sheriffs out there. the candidate made this assertion, and they're frustrated that the mainstream media may not be fact checking it, but they'll two out on their -- go out on their own and fact check. if you're interested in reaching people whether you be a political campaign, an constitution, a company, you better be in every space where people are. and people still watch television, they still read the newspaper, they're still on radio. but increasingly you've got huge segments of our population using almost all of their consumer product information online. so you better be there. if you're a political campaign and you say, well, i've got my television strategy and my free

press strategy and my radio strategy, and then i'll figure out the digital piece last, you know, you're completely missing the boat. it's got to be at the center of your operation. >> okay, on that note, let's turn to jacqueline ann surin from malaysia. you were at the very same moment that steve and david were engaged in the u.s. election campaign in 2008, you were at the hub of a really dramatic election in malaysia. tell us a little bit about your experience. >> sure. thanks. [inaudible] malaysia's looking south of thailand and singapore -- [inaudible] as a journalist, i would say that no doubt the internet has changed the ways -- [inaudible] in malaysia. and there's also -- [inaudible] has changed the manner,

reclaimed power from the state -- [inaudible] >> jacqueline, i'm going to interrupt you for a second. i'm going to have to interrupt you for just a second. let's try lowering the volume in this room just a little bit and particularly on this speaker maybe. i think it may be feeding back to jackie. let's try it, let's try that again. sorry, jacqueline. would you start again, please? >> sure. is this better? >> just go ahead and talk, and we'll get a better feel for it. >> okay. [inaudible] >> we hear you. >> some of you may be familiar with. >> go ahead, we hear you. >> yeah. it answers is malaysia truly asia. and as a journalist and a citizen i often wonder what about respective laws. the malaysia media are subject

to government funding that can be withdrawn by the finance minister in charge. such government action cannot be contested in court which means there is no legal recourse. in 1987, three newspapers were shut down under a government crackdown. that same law that allowed the government to do that still exists today. indeed, there are about 14 laws in malaysia that sup press freedom. newspapers, tv and radio stations often receive instructions from government and, of course, their continued existence depends on the government, censorship is common. indeed, malaysia's at the world's bottom 30% when it comes to press freedom. we have a media that is categorized as not free. in my own experience of 14 years in the press, i know that editors often receive instructions by phone or fax or -- [inaudible] and, yes, i've had my fair share

of fights which for me just meant i was doing a really good job as a journalist. and 13 years ago our prime minister was trying to get foreign companies to invest in the multimedia -- [inaudible] vision that information communication technology would be the next engine of growth for the country. in order to get the investments he needed, he had to promise that there would be no censorship of the internet. this summit is in china and the bill of guarantees which today citizens need to be thankful for. the government still has a host of laws it can use against online immediate -- immediate a a -- media and bloggers. [inaudible] still, because one doesn't need a -- [inaudible] and because censoring the internet can be a futile

exercise, there has been a steady growth of online participation by citizens. and because of internet penetrations having decreased and gadgets becoming cheaper, it has also become so much easier to self-publish. hence, the proliferation of blogs and online media sites in malaysia. clearly, a shift from the institution to the individual and from government to citizens because of the internet. one of the things that -- [inaudible] when i moved from print to online was how to get the support i needed in order to -- [inaudible] before my colleagues and i started "the nut graph," a couple of us covered the last general elections two years ago -- [inaudible] now, we had no headquarters, no office and no publishing permit. all we needed was -- [inaudible] digital cameras, laptops, internet connections and -- [inaudible]

in order to start writing and publishing. so what happens when a retracted statement in malaysia suddenly experiences an opening up of public space that is less acceptive -- [inaudible] things fall apart. in late 2007, for example, there was two rallies that the media could not report on. the media was told they could only report what the government said. as a result, the media reported that in one of these rallies only 4,000 people had turned up. however, posted on the internet was a number that was ten times more. additionally, a tv report about al-jazeera was quickly uploaded on youtube and circumstance -- circulated. this only -- [inaudible] a big, fat lie.

these two events, these two street rallies and the way that the traditional media reported on them were pivotal in the creating the additional momentum that was needed from malaysian voters to vote against the ruling leaders in our general election two years ago. what the internet did was show traditional media and the development -- [inaudible] both suffered serious losses in credibility, and as a result, our last general election was historic in that it denied the ruling coalition two-thirds majority in parliament. only the second time in our 52-year history -- [inaudible] that that had happened. in one spectacular example of how the tide had shifted, several press time bloggers were -- [inaudible] at the same time, the information minister who had publicly denigrated bloggers lost his seat by a huge margin. the power to determine what

messages are inserted into the public domain has also shifted to the individual. indeed, the -- [inaudible] politicians recognize that. several have used facebook and twitter to connect with their constituencies and to maintain a public profile that is independent of the media. in one recent example late last year, the new chief of -- [inaudible] which is the dominant party in the ruling coalition, cleverly suspected that the traditional media would not support his radical message of replacing -- [inaudible] so what did he do? he released his speech ahead of time to the online media so that we could headline and tweet his speech as it was being delivered. now, true enough the next day the traditional media completely ignored his message, but it didn't matter because his message, which was calling for

less -- [inaudible] had already been disseminated online. the potential of the internet has made it possible to hold account our government and traditional media. as a journalist and a citizen, i say that is a good thing for democracy, but the question for me remains, how exactly will the media and citizens embrace the shift in power so that public interest is constantly served? and perhaps this is a query, ralph, that we can talk about during the question and answer session. >> okay, jacqueline, we'll definitely do that. i'd like to ask one just right now because you have set up a situation in which you just finished telling us that the traditional media ignored the fundamental message of an opposition candidate, but the online media published it. is there any threat to you, the online media, is there any danger that the very government officials who are not giving you

a permit can, in some way, threaten you and prevent you from publishing what you do get on the web? >> sure. actually it was thought opposition of parliament, this was a member from the ruling coalition. and so even within the ruling coalition those who are a little bit with more progressive are realizing that they cannot rely on traditional media. and so they themselves are now resorting to using social networking strategies as a means to get their message out. in terms of whether there's threats against the online media, censorship is not such a huge threat compared to the traditional media just because the internet is so difficult to censor, and it really just gets additional publicity to an online media if we get censored. but there are whole chunks of -- [inaudible] "the nut graph" itself has not

been censored, but there is a much larger online news site which has had its office raided, police reports have been launched against them. but like i said, it's really hard to shut them down because they have -- [inaudible] across the world, in fact. and you know they're on facebook and twitter, so you can shut them down for a day and politics is ten minutes for them to set up somewhere else. so it's an exercise in futility, and i think the government is having to learn how to manage the shift in power. i don't think it's learning quickly enough. which may be a good thinking for democracy in my country. >> okay. i'm going to turn to steve schmidt now, but i want to come back because you started your presentation, jacqueline, with a little description about malaysia. i'm not sure that everyone in the audience here heard it. somebody else remind me of this later, at what level of