we deeply regret the armed surge in syria which have not waned and continue to spiral. this is the other side of the corn. we would have liked those

countries that spokane favor of reform to support the syrian official position instead of opting for incitement and defiance. the more ground we covered towards stability and reform, the stronger the foreign incitements. armed violence surges in tandem with multiple economic sanctions. by targeting of the syrian economy with sanctions, the united states and the european union jeopardized the interests and basic daily subsistence needs of the syrian people. this course cannot be reconciled

with pronouncements about concern for the interests of the syrian people. it runs counter to the basic principles of human rights in defense of which these states based their interests in our internal affairs. must be recalled the charter of organization states that nothing contained in the present charter shall authorize the un to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state. ladies and gentlemen, syria provided our region with a model of peaceful coexistence among different components of the syrian people. a model which deserves to be emulated. secularism to propose its national unity in view of

religious and ethnic diversity of the region to which it belongs, a region that was the cradle of divine religion and the best place of human civilization. any objective analysis of the events in and around syria will demonstrate clearly that the purpose of the unjust and neisseria campaign underway now is to attack this model of coexistence that has been a source of pride for our people. otherwise how can we explain provocations, financing and arming religious extremism? what purpose could this surf that could dismember syria and

adversely affect its neighbors? what else could this course the chief spreading a over the countries of the mediterranean and serving israel's expansionists interests? i assure you, our people are determined to reject all forms of foreign intervention in their internal affairs. we shall continue to pursue security and stability. we shall proceed in implementing a comprehensive program of reform through a national dialogue to turn syria within months into a model of political pluralism and an oasis for peaceful coexistence among different components of its

people. from this rostrum, i call upon states which have partaken in the and just campaign against syria to reconsider their positions. to them i say our people will not let you implement your plans and will foil your schemes. i also express our appreciation and thanks to those who stood by our people's side. any harm that could have befallen their interests and encourage them to pursue their aspirations. ladies and gentlemen, for years the international community has considered the solution to be the basis for establishing peace between the israelis and palestinians. negotiations between the two sides continued for years. they have failed to achieve any

progress toward a solution due to is really's well-known therefore the international community's pursuit of the recognition of palestinian statehood on the palestinian territories occupied in 1967 is legitimate. it is a step toward restoring all the palestinian rights. syria, called on the international community to support this. we also condemn the israeli blockade of gaza and call upon the international community to show that its responsibility and force israel to lift this blockade. our position in declaring the middle eastern nuclear weapon free zone is established and

well known. we continue to call for bringing pressure to bear in israel to implement international resolutions that cause it to exceed 2 the number of -- non-proliferation treaty and submit facilities to the iaea. this measure is of extreme importance to security and stability of our region. we at the same time stress that all states have required -- the right to acquire nuclear technologies. this rate is guaranteed by the ftc. we renewed the call to lift the embargo that had been enforced on cuba for decades.

ladies and gentlemen. we all aspire to a more just and secure world. this international organization as a major role to play. it can play this role more effectively if some powerful states gave attempts to further their own agenda. nevertheless the international community will be able to follow the right course to bring about a better world to which our people aspire. i thank you. >> a few moment the hearing it looking at ways to help veterans find civilian jobs. live coverage at 8:30 eastern of washington post forum on china

and the world economy. >> now get regular updates of the c-span network with c-spannow on twitter with quick program information including which events are live to help you watch. it is easy to sign a. go to twitter.com/c-spannow and it fall. the most instant information what to watch on c-span, c-span2 and c-span3 on twitter. >> now reform on ways to help veterans find civilian jobs. this 90 minute discussion was part of an event looking at challenges book faced by returning service members. it is hosted by the u.s. naval institute and military officers association. >> give people one more minute

or so to take your seats. thank you. okay. i am pleased to introduce our next panel discussion, are we really committed to hiring with the warriors? and its moderator, barbara starr, in the award winning producer and correspondent who has been reporting from the pentagon since 1998. she has a profile numerous wounded warriors and reported on sections 60 at arlington. we are honored to have miss starr here with us currently with cnn. she has worked for abc news and

jane's defence weekly magazine. it is an important discussion for us this afternoon to talk about the action that goes with some of the reality that we talk about this morning. to discuss the challenges and barriers with providing meaningful employment opportunities to our wounded warriors and in our panel we try to construct corporate government veteran perspective. let's get on with our panel. i would like to burn deuce barbara starr. paul cofoni [applause] >> i want to share something about general peter kerr rally. i am biased because i think he is one of the most remarkable serving general officers in the u.s. military and want to tell you why. it was a year ago one night i

was looking at my blackberry before went to sleep and suddenly i had a long torturous e-mail from a young army captain ahead come to know. he had served in the wars -- you wonder how many americans all these years later if you said to them triangle of death when even know what you are talking about. so this capt. e-mails me. i had met him at fort hood. he was suffering from a good deal of posttraumatic stress. he had been involved in an incident where he called a strike. it had resulted in a number of civilians being killed but the investigation fully cleared him. with a series of circumstances. this unit put in that led to this. and he e-mail me saying tonight is the third anniversary of my event. i knew what he meant. he had a new baby.

he said my son is 5 weeks old and tonight i wonder if i deserve to have him. if you want to talk about having your heart stop that will do it to you. what do you do? as a reporter that late at night? after all these years we have come to know so many troops and is in man e-mails me. what do you do? you cut and paste and you e-mail general carelli. help this young man. he is in trouble. and will tell you that he is also on e-mail at that time of the night and immediately got this young man what he needed. your one speaker is remarkable officer. we will come full circle on that in a minute. the question of veterans unemployment, you start looking for the numbers. how many veterans are unemployed

from the wars iraq and afghanistan and you find different statistics which we are going to have one of our panelists address. they're all different. the latest round when looked this up this morning was younger male veterans 18-24 years old face unemployment rates as high as 26%, nearly 2.5 million men and women left the active duty military since september of 2001. that is 2.5 million that need meaningful work. 9/11 veterans generation more likely to be employed in things like construction, mining, transportation and utilities, information services, all the sectors of the economy that one is told have experienced employment declines. less inclined to be employed in education and health services

which have added jobs during this period of recession. some of the questions we want to look at are the basic ones. where are the jobs? all these statistics are meaningless to the young veteran who says i needed job and where do i find a job? all the statistics in the world, all the training programs on the world while they have tremendous value to someone who needs work, that is what they need. we will talk about some of that. we will talk about some of the cases though i am sure we have all run across younger veterans coming out of the military, looking for work. i will give you two examples of veterans i stay in touch with and this will give us a bit of the scope of the problem. younger veteran marines home for many years could not find work.

posttraumatic stress. fell into not only joblessness but homelessness. know where to go. it has taken him a number of years. i saw him in san diego. he has finally turned his life around. he is going to start manufacturing is for personal hot sauce recipe which will be marketed at wholefoods. this is a kid who was sleeping in the park when he came home from being part of the first marine reconnaissance unit in baghdad. on the other hand i can tell you of another young marine who is an amputee. 100% disabled. he is enrolled at harvard looking at getting at joint degree in business and law. for those of us who considered a good day to address ourselves out of bed to get to work in one piece these stories are remarkable. i am going to stop there because what will be useful is to talk

about the programs, the trends but never forget there is a young veteran out there that need the job and all the washington talk may be fairly meaningless to them when they are looking to pay next month's rant. on that note we are going to start with our panelists. i am not going to introduce them. they will introduce themselves and we will move down the line. they will talk about who they are and what they're doing with their company or their government organization to answer this question where are the jobs? capt. ayers, first of. >> my name is chris. good to meet you. you have my bottle. chris ayers. i was commander first marines. on april 13th, 2004, there was

an attack, sustained 15 to 20 r p gs. one killed by gunnar and one ripped off the back of my right 5. dead in the water and stuck in the track. the driver came conscious and punched out of the kill zone only to end up having the tendencies up because the rocket went into the engine compartment. we were dead in the water in enemy territory. the ambushing force that hits us in the kill zone pursued us on foot. our marines bailed out of the track. satsop ec defense. one of my gunners raked me into the house and put it toward a cut on my leg. the person in charge at that point coordinated and repelled three frontal assaults and had a

liaison with the quick reaction force and pretty much lost all my blood. bled to death. my doctor was not screening blood packs. remember waking up on heavy dope. spent 75 days in brooke army medical center and ended up taking six months to learn to walk again and eventually retired in april of 2007. during that course i didn't feel like doing anything. i was 36. what does the 36-year-old do retired? kind of like forced them -- forced gump. a hand cyclist. the put my aggression to the road and tried to win some

raises. that didn't solve everything. has a male i esteem myself which i believe most of us do on providing for the family in working and at one point i have to go back to work. so i started to interview a lot of companies and working with military recruiters. i was having a tough time. one recruiter looked at my career path and all my education and he goes you are not the typical candidate. you are and a typical candidate. if you don't have the intellectual capacity to wonder stand ramming an r p g 3 legs might change your life i don't want you representing me. hopefully i was providing perspective after a was reprimanded but i don't think he

cared. the point is we got to work together. work with other companies and eventually came across operation impact which is a program for hiring severely wounded service members or their family members that northrop grumman corp.. i had a lot of success and the program manager for the operation, grilled her continuously for three weeks before i accepted that position with northrop grumman. i had to grow her about a lot of concerns because i have seen a lot of organizations that say we want to hire wounded veterans and that is great but sometimes it is like a trophy piece. i am not a trophy piece. i don't want to come to your organization. i want to work. i am wounded but i am not a rock

star. i want to get back to work and provide a functional aspect in society and contribute to the rest of society. in a lot of companies and organizations with great programs sometimes they are immature in their experience in realizing what you're going to do with this individual now that you hired him. i was the first marine officer to be retained on active duty under the commander's, that we ended. great program but was in its infancy. what will we do with capt. ayers at this point? i was stuck at headquarters marine corps in a cubicle with three lieutenant-colonels. i wish some things had been different about the program but at a time and was a sick individual, unhealthy and accepted by medical retirement. i got out.

here comes northrop grumman. i grill karen and she put me at ease. she is married to a marine corps vietnam veteran who lost his leg through vascular surgery from agent orange. having a program manager like karen as a liaison between the veteran and a family member and also the corporate organization to get the support they need to implement a program like this was key. it was a huge. even within the program i am not going to paint a pretty picture. i had my ups and downs but it is a great program. north for grumman really supported me. if you want a decent program you have a program manager that can be the liaison that understand the veterans or can be a liaison between the veteran and the corporation but also the

corporation needs to give their program manager the support like we were trained in recruit training as an officer, it listed as an officer you go through basic training and you go -- just like we do college graduates out of school with no military experience. put them on a rotation. if you can implement those programs, that veteran will take the shareholder back to do anything for you and continue to accomplish anything you put in front of them. operation and packed, if the veteran is too severely disabled they will hire family members. that was a tough chorale because if the veteran or spouse or parent is taking care of someone severely disabled is tough on the individual to work and perform. it is the tough crowd to try to

hire. that is part of our program as well. i will hand it over to you. your turn. >> now i know why you were first. i am paul cofoni and i would like to begin my comments not with my own words but those of a disabled veteran who works for our company. here is what he says. i was a little worried about being a productive member of such a high level technically diverse team but i had on the job mentoring that let me hit the ground running. i don't expect to be treated differently and i don't let ride disability keep me from doing the job i enjoyed. if i could leave you one of thought, that is what our program is about. helping people find meaningful careers that they enjoy it and

brings out the best in them. this journey began in 2007 when it made sense for us to do our part to and not repeat the complacency and distain shown to returning vietnam veterans that started in the 70s but continues today with too many veterans who have never been reintegrated into our society. many of them never fully treated or diagnosed for their symptoms and their wounds. sadly making a disproportionate percentage of homeless people. one of the great shames in america in my opinion. we decided this generation of war fighters needed better help in reintegrating and we launched the program as i said to do our

part by offering meaningful employment. we call our program deploying talent and creating careers. we set a goal in 2007 which seems small now but then seemed pretty good. to hire ten disabled veteran that year. began by assembling a team of people committed to this goal from around the company and as you might expect they mostly head up by our human resource and recruiting people with a few managers, some of whom were out of that vietnam era and understood the problem and wanted to help. we started working with walter reed and bethesda. later we worked with the medical folks at porche bell and those interactions were met with suspicion because there's a lot

of interactions that happened around -- as much about publicity or feeling good as there are about real efforts to help in the recovery process and the reintegration process but eventually because we had past experience with walter reed through a program called comfort to america's uniformed services we worked our way into their good race -- grace and began a program with other medical facilities. we began building a network to provide a resource of people who were interested in employment, disabled veterans interested in employment. we worked with the wounded warrior foundation.

maybe safe harbor program. the department of labor became a good partner with career centers around the country and the marine wounded warrior regiment is another organization we are working with. we worked with the an r o which has an amazing in turn program bringing wounded veterans in and helping them learn the job skills they need to have a good career and we also work with mcguire air force base and built our network. today we join the network of 60 other companies that share job need for skills needs and resumes for disabled veterans. after four years where are we? the word is out externally and internally among the veteran community that we are serious about this and anxious to help. we met our goal that first year,

ten disabled veterans. since then the program has ramp the. we have 4% of the population are disabled veterans. 90% of those do direct contract work so they are not solely doing staff type functions. we developed and in turn program and a mentoring program. the intern program helps disabled veterans in terms of acquiring skills on the job. the mentoring program helps them integrate into our culture and make the transition. our rate now is over 100 disabled veterans are being hired per year and 15 to 30 of those are combat disabled veterans. we are proud of what we do and we are proud to be associated

with so many other companies. if we could just get the fortune 1,000 to take that kind of challenge, 4% of their population be disabled veterans, we would not heck out of this issue. ..

>> to give them the benefit of the doubt, the start so we had to take a lot of burden of helping for people to require the skills ourselves. i think i will stop there. >> i'm going to stick my nose in for a minute. junior, as we come upon you and the rest of the panel, broaden it out a little bit for us as final employment as an issue is of the employment of the disabled combat veterans, broaden out for us to all veterans coming home who are impacted by the recession, the economy, the lack of jobs, what you're seeing in the department, what works, what doesn't work, and my suspicion is that mr. prophet and mr. schmiegel also given who they represent will have other thoughts to offer about the broader picture let's broaden it out for a minute. expect anything else you want me

to do? [laughter] >> if you could -- >> i can write some other stuff. >> if you can sort out the statistics. >> first of all, let me thank you all for being here. i appreciate it very, very much. on behalf of my secretary, secretary solis, department of labor. i want you to know although we are the only piece in all of department of labor that handles that specifically, and so i'm honored to be part of that. secretary solis has basically said, made a commitment across the board, as has secretary shinseki and a few others. the bottom line is we will take care of our veterans no matter what. we will do what needs to be done to take care of them, to put them into meaningful employment, to get them jobs and so on and so forth. i want to be able to put that out there because i want you to

know that commitment doesn't just come from one level. it comes from the top, across the board. statistics, now you said 18-24, 26%. as of august, as of august of this year we at 877,000 veterans unemployed. out of that, with an unemployment rate of 7.7%, is actually what the total percentage is right now. it gets up to about 26% for the 18-24-year-olds, at a certain level when they get out. however, after a while the percentage starts going down. specifically what they are, you know, i wasn't prepared to give you that. i will help you. i promise that i will at least get you, and whoever is interested let me know. so, the bottom line on this is

before i get started i want you to understand who is our veteran. everyone of you know what our young men and women are going through right now. and when i see young men and women i'm not talking about just the 18 through 24, the 18th through, 30 anything, i'm talking about from the 18 year-old to 64-year-olds. to the person that has been out there for all these years, has done what needed to be done and have put their lives out there for us, and now find that they are 50 years old and they can't find a job and they haven't had a job for 10, 12 years. so they going to homelessness, they going to different things. that's reality of life. where the economy is good or bad, it has happened. even during the bad times we still had veterans on the street. that's a travesty. we shouldn't have it. we should never have that.

secretary solis as part of the homeless council, and so is secretary shinseki. and one of the biggest things they said as they said insiders will try to eliminate homelessness. we are doing that. we are working on it as hard as we can. within deal well with certain programs especially in the veterans program. we have homeless veterans reintegration programs are pretty successful programs, ladies and gentlemen, i've got to take it bringing in veterans to a certain site, helping them, not what do with the fact that the unemployed and there on the street, but the first you, the first thing we got to do is we've got to get rid of those quote unquote demons. and let me tell you, i will use chris for a second. i'm sure that when he first went in -- >> i'm the demon. [laughter] >> the point being is, when he first transitioned in, coming

from such a hard life that happened to him, those first few months, correct me if i'm wrong, were a little tough to kind of get over. >> a little. >> he still the same way, he hasn't changed. >> the fact of the matter is you have to be up to deal with all those issues, if you will, before you can actually get a person to move on. before you can actually do anything. and i don't care if you're the best employer in the world, if you don't understand that, if you don't understand that culture, if you don't understand where they're coming from, you can have the best employee in the world but you're not going to be able to retain him or her, and you're not going to be able to make him work effectively. you have to understand who they are first. whether they are wounded or

whether they are not. whether they were in combat or whether they never even saw a fire, something being shot at. i'm very passionate about this, you can tell. why? because i foursomes that are that are in the military. between my sons i have 12 tours in iraq and afghanistan. i understand what it's like to be a parent waiting for a word from your kids. i understand what it's like having one of her sons come back and call you at 6:30 a.m. on a saturday morning and ask you, hey, colonel, not using dad, calling you by your rank, and saying, do you have nightmares? when you walk down the street do you smell a certain thing and flashy back to something else? having a three hour conversation with the marine, whose an f-18

pilot, whose a phenomenal individual, you have a three hour conversation and you spend, you spend five minutes talking out of that three hours. i tell you that because that is part of what we are looking at. that other piece is, and i have to kind of get an overview, let me give you one biggest thing that's happened to us that we've noticed. what we've noticed is that we have an education problem, ladies and gentlemen. not with our troops, but what the people who employ them. i have to gentlemen over here to my left who on the very honored because the fact of what they have done within their respective areas to help break

that barrier down. then there's a second problem. the second problem is our troops, our people, our young men and women coming back. how many of you have served in the military? raise your hand, please. do you remember the day you walk into boot camp? remember that day? or ocs or whatever it was? to you remember what that felt like? for a marine standing on the yellow footprints, there were two things that were going through my head that day. one of them is not to kind. the other one was, what in gods name did i do? and whether you the army, air force, marines, or the coast guard, well, maybe not air force but everybody else --

[laughter] you understand what it's like that first day, if there is fear, apprehension that you don't know what to do. and as the weeks go by, or the time goes by, it gets a little better, yelling, you can understand. you can actually understand what they're saying to you. [laughter] you get a little easier, you actually move a little sharper. you look a little better, and so on and so forth. and then the moment of your life, the moment of truth is the day you graduate. anyone of you who have served, forget about if you serve. remember that day when you graduate from high school, graduated from college, that feeling you had inside. your chest was a lot bigger, you spoke a little deeper. you were somebody. and at that moment you were going to conquer the world.

that's our guys and gals. we have to make them understand that when they get out and they get rejected the first time by an employer, that we will bring them right back to the day they graduate from boot camp with their chest up, their voices and that strength that they will conquer the world. hell, i conquered -- i ended vietnam war all by myself. i did. i graduated from boot camp and i said i'm ending it. i said, my point being is, ladies and gentlemen, that's the culture and we have to understand it. for the employers, understand what it is that these young men and women bring to your table. whether it be a small company, medium company or large company. how do you bring them into your company and make sure that they

see themselves in that company? how do you make that work? wal-mart has done it. by having an employer group all of veterans. to be able to turn around and talk to each other. chamber has done it by being able to reach out to all the other people and make sure that the other, other chapters and everything understands what's going on. we've gotten together to make sure that the resource managers, the actual hiring people, understand what an 11 bravo is. i sure as hell didn't know what 11 bravo was. i didn't. until somebody told them, that's an infantry guy in the army. well, why didn't you say that? we have to teach the human resource individuals to ask the questions, because if you don't

ask the question, as the old saying goes, a resume will get you the interview. the interview will get you a job. if they don't ask the questions, you're missing an opportunity. with that i will stop. >> well, first of all, barber and paul, i just realized that we are up here with three marines. spent exactly, sir. specs i think things are about even. [laughter] >> that's a good one. >> i'm gary profit and i'm the senior director of military programs at wal-mart. and just by way of introduction, i think the thing i would like for you to know most about me is that i've been at wal-mart for about three years, and the reason that i accepted an opportunity to join the wal-mart team was twofold.

first of all, this isn't about wal-mart feeling good about itself, or me feeling good about myself. this is absolutely about the prospect of creating positive business outcomes. i think the military community constituencies represent arguably the largest diverse talent pool in the world. and as most of us believe, the future will belong to those that will win the talent or if you're not operating in space, and i think you probably are missing an opportunity here so it's about business outcomes. but for me the personal aspect of this was a chance that i get to give back in terms of career opportunities and contributions, family financial security, with those whom i've had the

privilege of serving. so, that's my way of introduction and i think is enough for me to share with you. and you can ask anything that you would like of me afterwards, but when i accepted the to invitation to come and be with you here today, i wanted to make sure with the organizers that they understood that i probably was going to gain more from this opportunity than i was going to contribute in value. because we are, i think in the very early stages on the threshold, if you will, of our commitment to wounded, ill, injured veterans, and their families and caregivers. but let me just share some of the things with barbara's suggestion that i think we are doing, let me begin by offering a little bit of context.

for those of you who may not know, our relationship with the military dates the u.s. army as a touch -- intelligence officer can -- captain sam walton who served during world war ii. and that relationship has grown dramatically over time. and i think that's important because that allows me to talk to lots of people about the compatibility of the wal-mart culture. and for those who are serving in uniform. our three basic beliefs uses many of the same words as i remember from army values. and so if you can have a cultural foundation that begins the transition, then i think it's very helpful. others have said this, this is, and i don't need to tell you about the challenging economy, the difficult employment market,

but we at wal-mart feel a certain urgency to act now. because as i was talking to kevin about earlier, the prospect of continued drawdown in iraq and afghanistan, the fact that there are dramatic fiscal pressures on for sizing, i'm not sure we can feel confident that it's going to get any easier sooner. so i think, i think we have to accept a certain bit of urgency. that also need to recognize that this is very much a marathon. we need to begin this for the long haul so we need to get it right. as you see played out in front of you here, i hope one of the things you recognize is the fact that i am gratified, and they tend to be anyway, but this is a very growing and deepening public-private partnership. we all need to work at this together because nobody can

solve it on their own. and i can talk at some length about the fact that we feel a responsibility because of our size and pervasiveness to lead with respect, to civic and social responsibility, and the wal-mart foundation does a lot of work, one of my greatest partners and they are doing some very cutting edge work that i can talk to you about in the wounded warrior community. for those of you that realize as i do, wal-mart is mostly everywhere. and so, unlike what paul was sharing, we think we can make an impact in communities across the nation, which is what kevin is doing in hiring our heroes at the community level is are important to us. but the reason that we have been very deliberate in the subject

of today's session is i learned when i visited with my wife, walter reed to during my last assignment on active duty every 90 days or so, that this is a very vulnerable population and we can't make any mistakes here. we've got to get this right, and so urgent yes, but a place we can make mistakes, i think not. i think kevin probably will talk about joining forces so i won't do much of that other than to tell you that i think one of the things that is very important there is what the white house and the president and first lady have done is raise awareness, which is a big thing. and have done a lot of things to i think educate people that i think is important. but i will say something, and i heard it in the panel this morning about portability of

jobs and turning jobs into careers. one of the things we thought was important that we did that day is be a part of an announcement where we highlighted what we call the military family promise, which essentially guarantees a job for a spouse who has moved to another part of the country as a result of their uniformed spouse being transferred. and so trying to turn jobs into careers we think is an important thing for us to do. we are engaged throughout the spectrum. we have direct transition point engagement. kevin is probably going to talk about hiring our heroes and important work that they are doing with the uso and hiring heroes u.s.a. we think that spouses are just as important as the uniform

member, and so we are very much involved in the military spouse employment partnership. and we were just beginning some work with the wounded warrior project that we think is very promising and it has the potential to scale so that wal-mart would feel like it's impactful. and we're beginning in the northeast and in california, and oregon and washington to get some lessons from that, and then we will actually migrate it to the other parts of the business. let me talk real briefly about the wal-mart foundation. some of you may know last veterans day we made a commitment to address unmet needs for military families and veterans at $10 million over five years.

in a speech that bill simon just gave at the american legion at the end of august, we doubled that to $20 million. and it's important because the philanthropic piece with the corporate piece is something that goes hand in hand. and specifically, there's a great program that some of you may know that is led by c. recuse university and it's called entrepreneurship boot camp for veterans with disabilities. and there's a companion effort that deals with families, represents a consortium of universities that are devoted to make entrepreneurs out of veterans with disabilities and their families, and to make them successful. if you don't know much about it, i would encourage you to learn about it. it provides some of the

flexibility that we think this population needs to not have necessary the typical career with wal-mart or with anybody else, but that would want to start and own their own business. i heard some discussion about my good friend, barbara, and given an hour this morning, the work she's doing is very important and very important to us as we go forward with our work in this space. because one of the things we realize is we must take away any of the entrances for leaders and hiring managers. and so with the support of her network, advising our people on some of the behavioral issues that they might confront as managers, we think is an important effort, but her work in the community blueprint is pretty exciting stuff. and then, the coming home series that the american red cross just announced which is all about reintegration and in some of

those things we think is pretty important. just a couple of observations and then i look forward to your questions. to add something to my friend junior, we do have a great challenge on our side. i spend 50% of my time teaching the military about wal-mart and the other 50% teaching wal-mart about the military. we can't expect our associates to understand this space for which some of them have no exposure. and so we are very invested in making sure that we do that, and just an example of that, at a very high in, captain and mrs. smiley was been veterans day with us, and foes -- for those of you who don't know them, he's still i think the first and only blind army

officer serving in active duty. and we live broadcast this throughout the wal-mart network across the united states, and live stream it on the web. and we just want people to see the caliber of the people we are talking about. we want to put a face on all of this, and so that's one of the ways we do it. but also i think it's very important that we do work on the military side to better prepare our soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, coast guardsmen, and transition from uniformed service. i'm off active duty so i don't have the same problems that general chiarelli may have when he goes back to the pentagon, wanting to blow up something. i think we have a transition

framework that's very mired in the past. i think the whole discussions about reverse boot camp and all those kinds of things are very enlightening and i think got to get some serious consideration to that. there's a communication problem here. the people leaving active duty that are looking for a second career can't express to us what their career aspirations are or why they should be considered with the portfolio preparation experience they have. and then conversely on the other side, the people that are listening don't know what they're hearing either. so we've got to i think do some work on both of those areas. and a final thing, i just would say that we at wal-mart believe that when we see an impediment to hiring a veteran or military family member, we must take it on immediately. because today, things get live a pretty quickly, and it's true

inside of organizations as well as outside so we addressed any of these things that arise pretty quickly. i think i've taken more time than i should, but i will -- >> we have like 25 minutes left. we want to get to some questions. don't feel any pressure. >> i knew that was going to happen. at least i got lunch today. [laughter] just a background about myself as good help from some of the issues you brought up with numbers. i was a marine for 20 years. i retired in 2009. i was very fortunate when i left the marine corps. i had a mentor, a guy named jim jones who is president obama's national security adviser. i was lucky to be at the right place at the right time, and i was very lucky that tom donahoe is at the chamber understands about hiring a veteran. he had a marine with him, and active duty marine with him for several years any program called -- while people were in active duty and it kind of top people

in the private sector and ngos and nonprofits about the value of hiring a veteran. anyway, he was always part of that. not every veteran is that lucky, which is really the reason we started this program at the chamber. if you look at the numbers, there are 12 million veterans in the workforce, and million of them are unemployed. a lot of people say to me, what's the big deal? that's roughly the same average as the national average. i have to bite my tongue. as a veteran myself i really want to give them an answer, are you kidding me? someone leaves their family for a year at a time and you're asking me why we should be doing a program for veterans? you've got to be kidding me. but i bite my tongue and i don't say that. and we make the business case for why hire a veteran. the fact is even though veterans are suffering, on average, about 9% unemployment there are specific populations of veterans that are really suffering. if you look at iraq and afghanistan veterans is roughly

13%. in the ages of 18-24 which is part of that cohort, it's close to 30% unemployment. that may be swayed a little bit by folks who are in school right now, but trust me its double-digit and it's nearing 20-30%. if you look at guard and reservists, they are suffering from a 14% unemployment rate. in several areas again it's 20-30%. so yes, we are at 9% vote we are at a moment in time if we don't do something about it now, that 9% will grow to 10, 11, 12% for the whole population because if we are drawing down the force, and we have 100,000 guard and reservists demobilizing this year alone, that 9% number will grow. we have to do something about it now. when i first came to the chamber in oni i was pumped on his chief of staff. i traveled everywhere around the country with him. i heard hundreds, hundreds of fortune 500 ceos say hey,

you're a veteran, how do we get more veterans in our company? so when tom asked me what i wanted to do next at the end of the two years i kind of connected to things. when i left the marine corps i served as the head of enlisted assignments. i was actually at enlisted assignment in the marine corps when we started the wounded warrior regiment. it seems to me if we are seeing this problem in our society and you have ceos say they want to higher veterans come he might as well start a program to address them. and it's really been a successful program because as barbara said, this is not about washington talk. the chamber made a mistake and hired a marine to do this because this is all about actions on the ground. it's really not going to happen in washington. it's nice on the like is some talk about it, but if you looked around the room, most of you have served. posted you get the issue. most of you understand why it's a good business proposition to hire a veteran. right? this is going to happen in the

local communities. if we are really going to have an impact, if you talk to 95% of thank you to leave the service they have no idea what they're going to do next. they always talk about where they're going. if we're going to solve this problem is going to require a movement across the country where companies like wal-mart, companies like fedex, companies like triwest to the present across the country can actually impact actions on the ground. we are not going to solve it here talking about it in washington. what did the chamber do about it? we started a year-long nationwide initiative to do hiring fairs in 100 communities across the country. listen, i will be the first person to say that a hiring fair will not get hundreds of thousands of people jobs. at the end of this 12 month period, 15 to 20,000 veterans and military spouses will have jobs. when we leave those local communities, core groups of leaders have stepped up and they

will go to the next two or three adjacent cities to that city we have just been in. we don't have to worry about that local chamber because, trust me, when they see this, we never have to go back to that city again. so next year we will be in 500 communities. i can say that with confidence because after we did the first five events, 13 chambers that were not on the list in the first 100, called and said we know you are doing the first 100, we will do our own. just send us the hiring of heroes logo. because we want to be a part of the stake we are on the verge of creating a movement. and i'm confident, i'm confident with the chamber, with companies, with the government, because we're doing this with the department of labor, we are doing this with the support of the guard and reserves. we will create a movement. in addition to that we are working on those populations that are suffering the most, the chain has a program for student veterans. waiver program for iraq and afghanistan veterans. we have a program working with the guard and reservists focus

on local communities and their yellow ribbon program. we have a program for women veterans and military spouses that are working with business professional women's foundation too great a network of 10,000 women in business mentors. those populations have issues also. listen, my wife served with me for 15 years. when we say hiring our heroes, a lot of people say don't use the term hero, it's overused. trust me, spouses, 93% of whom our wives are the heroes and people cannot forget that. in any program that helps veteran should also help spouses get jobs because most of our men and women are leaving the military have to have dual incomes and to go back to those communities across the country. the last thing we're working on is a program for wounded warriors which is really why we are here today. the chamber will do this in a very measured way. there's lots of people talk about doing programs for wounded warriors. a lot of them are not doing it for the right reasons. we have decided we want to do it

in pilot. it is significantly different from all the other populations we are talking about. so we're working with the uso and higher heroes u.s.a., and in fort carson. we do very targeted workshops to get them ready. we do mock interviews with them so that they don't feel it's intimidating if i'm at the job fair and they get the care they need from the companies that are committed to doing this with us. we also engage the dod. great we have a program called operation warfighter, but what about doing that in the private sector? we engage dod to have an internship program for wounded warriors and the private sector and i guarantee you we can get 30 companies to market sign up to do that. we will start that as early as this spring. we also believe it's important we educate employers and we will look to work with shrm on the. ptsd and tbi is not just a statement in terms of, in terms of what general surely

addressed. i also think in doing a service to our service members in terms of telling people about ptsd, we also create a stigma in the employer community where people are not hiring because they are afraid -- there's a lot of people with ptsd or my friends that are fully functioning in the workplace, and we need to educate human resources managers about that. and the last thing we're doing is we're creating a network to the local chamber so that the local chambers of commerce stations across the country can be connected with other chambers when a wounded warrior is getting ready to leave. so that when we test these pilots, that we can scale them in a significant way once we look at what works, we will scale it to the 1700 chambers of commerce that we have across the country. the last thing i would say is that the chamber is not going to stand and just be happy with what we do in the first year.

we are going to create a private sector, veterans employment advisory council comprised of 25 biggest companies in america. wal-mart, triwest, fedex, siemens are all founding members of that. on veterans day we will launch that, and those companies, not only will they represent millions of jobs, but they will drive this issue in the private sector. we will tell the public sector what we need to do to make an even bigger impact in the years to come. we will create an architecture to support the high touch events we're doing in local communities so that veterans are held the day before and the day after. i think if we're going to have an impact on this it's not just big companies. the chamber has 1700 local chambers as members. we're 3 million small businesses. if we can get 10% of those 3 million small businesses, and 10% of the three and a half million veterans committed to hiring one veteran by 2013 we can cut the unemployment rate in

half for veterans. and that's something the chamber will be working on with our partners on the veterans employment advisory council, and we are going to drive this for as long as it takes to address the issue of veterans unemployment. thank you. [applause] >> i think we've heard some really good practical items that these companies are working on. we have about 15 minutes left. i want to get in as many questions from the audience as we can. so please, you know, move to the microphones. and just do the time constraints only if we could keep the questions as short as we can. and we will just start right over here. >> hi. i want to thank all the presenters. i'm here with an organization called bright star technologies, and we higher veterans. we are very interested in this forum because we really need the

information that you were sharing about how to make their workplace net and integrate lives of veterans. i've got two questions. i think primarily for captain ayers and mr. ortiz, but anybody is welcome to answer. it's really one, two-part question. what can we do to put some additional pressure on vet centers and department of labor to provide better employment readiness programs for veterans reentering the workforce? and with that, also what do we need to do as an organization to provide a truly integrated and supported environment? like what are the top three things that we need to have in place? >> don't all speak at once. >> the first one is a difficult one because, you know, i've got my opinions about the tap process. i think it could be much more,

but again it's just one of the things, you know. we recognize, i think ago and in this room understand, that there's things we need to continue to work at, and that's the beauty of us. we get here and talk about and try to better the process. you know, the bottom line it boils down to leadership. boils down to leadership and that's both on the veterans aside and that's on the employer side. >> anyway you can think an employer can be vocal or supportive? >> working with you again? >> will, the department we have as an employer had some difficulties in getting veterans in when we needed them to perform our work processes. and we are height key high-tech consulting of records compliance management. and just kind of trying to work with local service agencies to get really employment ready people into the organization. >> maybe junior has a thought about that.

>> i was thinking about marine for life within the marine corps and there's other organizations like that. >> one of the things i want you all to kind of take away, veterans employment training services also has what we call our force multiplier out there. and we work with the state workforce agencies. those agencies have specific one stop centers which is what i think you're talking about. >> yes. >> okay. there are specific individuals in their that are, that is their job to help of the veterans that come through. one of them is the disabled veterans outreach personnel, and, of course, the leader is the local veterans employment representative. the lever is the one that reaches out to you and says, what do you need? >> gotcha, okay. >> now, the problem that arises is that a lot of people now with a one stop, the one stop center

takes care of all, everyone, to include veterans. what they don't know is that veterans have priority in that one stop. the lever is supposed to reach out to you and get you, what do you need? what are you trying to achieve? who are you looking for? and then be able to match that with what you need. so, if you don't have that, i can provide that for you. because we have, we have about 2000 levers throughout the country. in every single state. so i can provide that. >> follow-up meeting in the back of the room. let's keep it going. next. >> christie, army wife. we worked with kevin in a recent national launch, and the chamber of commerce across the country were spectacular in helping us with that effort. i wanted to say to gary, mike

has this institute for veterans and military families, and i think when you all talk about the education piece of it, both from the spouse side, the servicemember side, the veterans side and actual companies themselves, that's probably going to be the most important and that has to have, i think you, you talked about it, that mental health aspect to it. and i think the peer-to-peer type of opportunities that you all have in these companies tossing those is going to be in the end one of the most important parts of all of this. because if you can get us in the door, and chris, you're talking about the challenges of trying to get the spouses and, you know, particularly if they are caregivers, one of the most valuable things we can provide to you as they caregivers and as the wives with out experience in living with 10 years of war now, because you have an entire generation of military who don't know anything but war. you can use us as consultant

have to to make it with these veterans, how to communicate with the spouse and get the best out of them. the last thing i would say is metrics. everyone is so well intended and i've seen so much money and so much passion just basically be flushed down the toilet. once you get the spouses, what's actually happening. >> you make a great point there. i just wanted to add on, you know, the education piece. i think it really goes to say that the person that you have implementing that, in the liaison need to be an engaging and outgoing individual who understands that and can execute. if you just hire someone who doesn't know it, put them in there, it's going to fail. so, you know, having that liaison, you have to put forth the effort to make sure that individual is a stellar performer and connects with you -- performer and can execute. spent i want to go way over there. with six people standing and i really want to get to everyone's

question. >> thank you. first of all i want to thank all of those representing the private sector up there for all you're doing, particularly the u.s. chamber, wal-mart, et cetera. because much of the impetus that was totally missing when we came home from vietnam, that was right after the peloponnesian war, those of you who are young in the audience, i commend you for what you are doing because this will take that kind of private leadership at every level in our nation and our society to get the job done. what i am concerned about what's not happening at a governmental level. and this gets directed towards junior, you're on the hot seat. the workforce investment act is supposed to have priorities services for veterans, and it does not. and it has been no enforcement for the last 10 years. and, frankly, the tax credits me the president is talking about is part of the jobs for americans act. in and of itself is not going to

tip the decision to get people to higher veterans. they will take it on the backend but it has to be money up front. we can take workforce investment act, and if there is the political will, force those delivery areas to start putting veterans in and use that money as a ojt. number one. number two, we can take the federal contract job listings which is an office of federal contract compliance which basically doesn't help anybody at the moment, and they seem to be engaged in finding employers more than anything else, it's not supposed to be a revenue a enhancement mechanism. it's supposed to be a behavior changing mechanism for federal contractors to get them to list and to higher protected groups, beginning with disabled veterans. so the question is twofold. one, what is department of labor doing to ensure that veterans priorities service is in force and implemented and every service delivery area and every community in the country,

working with employers, to have ojt programs that are funded and the money is already appropriated? and secondly, what is the department of labor doing to make compliant, not an onerous burden on its employers but to help people change their behavior so that they higher veterans, particularly returning wounded veterans. thank you. >> i'm on the hot seat across the board. and rick, we discussed this in previous times also. i can't speak for osc cpn ally, and in this case, i'm going to have to go back and actually find out a lot because unfortunately i can't answer those questions to you directly. but i would be more than happy to go back and check. >> okay. >> john, retired. one of the things i haven't

heard much about this morning or evening this afternoon is the faith-based communities. this is an untapped resource that is begging to find an opportunity to serve, and not on the reintegration but also to reemployed the veterans. this is where you're going to find the doctors, lawyers, schoolteachers. you will find active guard reserve people. you're going to find veterans. you going to find your retirees, et cetera. it seems like this is an untapped resource, just like i had 60 more families sign up this sunday asking what they can do in my small program, to help with, working with the walter reed, the new walter reed wounded warriors, et cetera. but i would like to ask all of you to consider this untapped resource, especially when you consider the u.s. chamber, wal-mart, et cetera, that can be very much integrated in the community. >> i think you make an outstanding point. you know, three years ago when i

grabbed my wife by the throat and lifted her three feet off the deck and then got arrested for domestic violence because i was a sick individual, educated myself on a lot about ptsd. it was my new enemy. i knew everything about it but still bottom line, i had to give it something else. i have to find the lord. and that's where i started my healing process, and i still worship him 100%. [applause] >> the bottom that at the end of the day, the accountability is on me as well as a better. at some point i have to say you know what? i've got to stand up to the plate. it doesn't give me virtual impunity to see the and have certain behaviors i was exhibiting. at some point i have to get up off my rear and take accountability for my actions, and everyone else needs to take accountability as well. it's twofold, good relationship. >> it wouldn't be too hard in northern virginia to grab less than four churches and come up with 30,000 people. we've got a large congregation, 40% of the organize volunteers

come from faith-based organizations. so it's there. take advantage of it. ideas and work with the christian men's bible campus, out of nebraska. and i know he has done some work within the marine corps and the senior chaplain within the marine corps. instead of turning to drugs and alcohol for returning veterans that are having difficulties, about turn to jesus christ. >> let's see if we can squeeze in our last four. we have people anxious enough to get up in front of the microphone, i want him to be heard. we will go for some short questions and short answers. >> i am an intelligence profession. one of the most important lessons learned from this latest war was the importance of culture. as was alluded to, great cultural society is between civilian and military culture. and only 1% of the population actually serves in the military. and that makes them particularly

isolated and vulnerable population. so my question is, is there a resource, maybe a handbook or a field manual, that bridges the cultural divide and educates, as mr. ortiz suggested, service members so that they can own their psychological, their own psychological adjustment and well being, both belong and getting back to employment? and by the way, i believe mr. schmiegel with the phone suggestion, and that is left is not a reliable source. [laughter] >> if anyone would like to answer that question. >> let me just tell you something that is important to us, because before we hire anyone at wal-mart, whether it's a very senior person or very junior person, we feel very confident that they can make, that they will be comfortable in

our culture, and that we will feel comfortable and confident that they will be successful. and the most important asset that we have in that regard, frankly, is our cultural foundation in what we understand to be service cultures. and the people that are the purveyors of that on our side are what we believe when we finally get the result of some polling done is, well north of six digits of veterans that are at wal-mart. and they are the best people to be able to take care of that for us. >> okay, let's move on. we're going to run out of time. i'm being the bad guy. >> kathleen carroll, nine-year marine, marine spouse, recently

transitioned to amazon as a military relations manager. just really directed to you, chris. what are some specific examples that companies like amazon or wal-mart, northrop grumman, what is northrop grumman done to specifically help you in your transition and make you successful? >> one was workplace accommodations, and then he recently, i moved my family up here, and i retired in texas. that's where i was born and raised and grew up. moving out. no, we have three girls, our oldest has down syndrome and then i am disabled as well. and i was working full-time with northrop, and my wife might as well have been a single mother of three. it's tough. i chose to move my family back home, got my permission from management to work on remotely. i work in i.t. a lot of the work i can do i can do remotely. when they need to travel i can come out and visit with my folks in the program. they have been able to accommodate meter. the program is not perfect.

it takes action on both my part, i can get ticked off here and say, i am mad with the program, i'm leaving. well then, two wrongs don't make a right. it doesn't have the program. or i can sit down and say i think we have some areas we continue, continuing need to improve and hey, here's my input. and and cultural differences is huge. i came from a military culture, an organization and you drop me into the corporate world and new act amends -- acronyms. i was like what? what is that? and i was in education mismatch. i have a bachelor of science. it was completely tough. so having that understanding, having seen management, middle and senior management that understands that and provides just been linked up with a mentor within the program that will work with me for the next year in program management. in taking actions like that and

stepping up to the plate, you know, bringing 50% effort on both sides is really going to help. >> let me get the last two people way over there on the end. >> we've heard that there may be as many as 85% of g.i. bill users dropping out of college, and my question is, if the education crisis linked to the unemployment crisis, and it's a what can employers do with universities to build a sturdier bridge from education to employment? >> well, we do, as you might imagine, we have a pretty aggressive canvass relations program, generally. we have a fairly long relationship with student veterans of america. we are actually looking to better integrate the military

aspects of what i have done into our larger campus relation programs. i think we will be more integrated. we have a very aggressive intern program. and so, we take pretty seriously, you know, how we interact with the academic community in a lot of fronts. i know that doesn't completely answer your question but we're pretty aggressive in this space. >> can i just add? there's one other thing we need to do. if you look at the force that is leaving when they're making their decision, they have to understand what path they will have to go down to get the qualifications they need to do what they have to do. in our transition process right now, there is no bridge plan for these young men and women that are leaving so they make an uninformed decision. the question earlier, veterans will hold three jobs in the first three years they leave. it's not because they're not

being assimilated into culture. mentors will help, and if they make an informed decision. these are smart young men and women. they just need to make a better decision. maybe we need to push community colleges to start. but we absolutely have to show them the path and give them maybe 20 or 30 options and what they will have to do to get to what they want to do in their second careers. >> that's what jumped out and screamed at me. they are not getting the leadership. if they don't have a plan for this post be executed when believe in being a part of the transition is huge. >> will make you the last question. i'm a federal employee with the army. right now we have about 9000 severely injured wounded and ill veterans and servicemembers that have medically or will be medically retired. everything i've heard here today, everything, is right on cue, right on target. and just like the gentleman who

stood up this morning and said what, what's going on? i would challenge labor to do one thing. revisit the apprenticeship program, make it work. i would challenge chamber of commerce one thing. three years ago we had a reintegration summit for veterans here in d.c. held by survivor core. one of the things that came out of that was a veteran friendly concept, like malcolm type of thing. come up with a branding program, stick to it, make employers responsible for hiring veterans in a standardized format that they can police themselves. thank you. >> i'm going to take a reporter's prerogative and i'm going to have the last question. and my question is going to be to the audience. as i have sat here and listened to everybody, i want to know, is there an unemployed veteran in this room? is there a veteran in this room that needs a job? and i don't see a single hand, which tells us, of course --

>> military spouse. >> is there a military spouse in this room? that is here to look for information because they need a job? and i'm looking around my microphone. i don't want to miss any hand. okay. >> i'm a military member that will be transitioning out medically separated or retired soon, and that's what i can, to find out what's out there, what's available. because i have no idea what the heck i am going to do. i haven't had to look for job in almost 11 years. >> do you feel you have learned anything here today? >> most certainly. thank you very much. i'm a u.s. marine. >> tell us your name. >> first lieutenant robert keith. combat logistics battalion two, i'm stationed at camp lejeune in north carolina. >> marine was enough, but i'm biased. [laughter] >> no worries, no worries. >> first, we wish you the best of luck. we are glad you learned something. a lot of resources here today. >> i will give you my card right after this.

>> we will all give you a card. [applause] >> and i say this because, and then i will stop talking, a couple months ago i went with admiral mullen, to a meeting similar to this in detroit, and then we went to cleveland and then we went to a few other places within. and everywhere we went, it was businessmen and bankers and organizations and all kinds of people in the audience, but there was always one or two, if you only open your eyes and ask, in the back of the room who came because they read about a meeting and they need a job and they need work. and people will do what they need to do for veterans. they will go to any meeting to find that job. so mostly it's a reminder to me when i sit in a large meeting room in washington, real people, real veterans, real needs. and so we thank you all for

coming and we wish everyone the best of luck and we thank our vietnam veterans in the audience for their service. some of us are old enough to remember the peloponnesian war's. [laughter] ..

a double conversations] a [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> the washington post and the u.s. institute of peace are hosting an all day summit on china's current and future status in the global economy. during the day business leaders and government and academic leaders will talk about the next step in china's evolution. this is live coverage on c-span2. that will be underway in just a moment. [inaudible conversations]

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good morning. i am guinea abramson. thank you for joining us at the global china summit. those of you who don't know i am general manager of washington post live which is the live division of the washington post. we bring together experts in business, government, academia and the community to talk about the most important issues of the day. for this particular event on china we partnered with oxford analytica, a global analysis advisory firm. you will hear from some of their leaders and their ceo, this afternoon. between our panelists, dr. kissinger at lunch and many experts in this room we expect to have a very engaging conversation on this topic. for that reason we are live streaming this conversation on washingtonpostslive.com.

if you want to find us on twitter you can look get the post live and tweet about the contest that global china. if you want to see photos after today or video highlights that the newsroom will do like washington post live on facebook and check into today's event on foursquare and washington postlive@globalsummit.com. look for our special report next friday in the washington post and the washingtonpost.com. i would like to thank our many partners and sponsors of today's event who made this possible. hilton worldwide is our partner across all washington post live events and they are investing in their portfolio by adding 100 hotels by 2014 so clearly this conversation is important to them. i want to recognize china daily news deputy editor in chief joined us from beijing and will give opening remarks at lunch.

i want to thank the asia society, specifically shane and orville schell who help us prepare for today's event. of course i want to recognize the u.s. institute of peace for hosting us today. dr. solomon, lisa frazier and 13 for various efforts. and would like to introduce duke energy and ceo jim rogers. duke is one of the largest power companies in the u.s. and they are now at the forefront of companies investing in china. gm is a lifetime member of the council on foreign relations and member of the honorary committee the joint u.s./china collaboration on clean energy and recipient of more awards and special recognition than i could name right now. i do want to mention earlier this year he received the asia society's international business award for his partnership with one of china's largest private

energy companies, enn group to develop cities that use energy more efficiently. my sincere thanks to jim who saw value in supporting this conversation from the beginning. please join me in welcoming jim rogers to the panel. [applause] >> good morning. i am glad you are here today. it is my hope that this is a day of great conversation. day of insight and at the end of the day you take a better understanding and better view of the way forward. one of the reasons we thought was important to join together with jennifer and her team and others to make this a reality is the simple belief that the

relationship between china and the u.s. is critical to the people of our countries and also to the people of countries around world. i have a unique interest in energy and environmental issues. the challenges we face are similar to the challenges in china. they are building of infrastructure to supply universal access to electricity. we have to remake our infrastructure in the united states. we both have an interest in using the best technology with the minimal emissions footprint and an interest in making our society's the most energy-efficient in the world. i believe together we can do that through collaboration and that will be of great benefit to the people of both countries and together we will have ideas that have a great influence on the use of energy in the future

around the world. thank you very much for being here. it is a great delight to partner with jennifer and her team at the post. thank you. [applause] >> for most of today we will introduce our panelists by mary jordan, from washington post live. we start the day with marcus bradley, executive editor of the washington post will give an overview of what you are about to experience. earlier in his career he became the kp dow jones news service hong kong correspondent covering hong kong, china, taiwan and the philippines. after move around the globe he returned to hong kong as asia correspondent with the wall street journal. he reported extensively from india, pakistan and southeast asia before moving in 1995 to

shanghai as china bureau chief. he knows a little about today's topic. please join me in welcoming marcus to the stage. [applause] >> good morning. it is a privilege to welcome this distinguished group. the washington post in partnership with oxford analytica is delighted to take time from their busy schedule to be with us and what we expect to be a lively and engaging dialogue on china's economic future with ties to the united states and its role of a global investor. this is in so many ways the central historical narrative of our time. dramatic transformation of a fast politically and -- isolated brand into one of the world's most powerful economic engine. like so many of you i have seen these changes firsthand. in 1984 i covered the installation of the first telephone switching system in a small city of 300,000 now city

of ten million, one of the world's largest telecommunications companies. in 1995 by moved to shanghai and lived in a 10 story building built in 1984 that was among the tallest buildings in the city. today it is lost a forest of skyscrapers. the sheer force of change in china sent shock waves around world. we are fortunate to have the leading finger's on china and u.s./china relations. bob rubin will be here as well as the founder of the china/united states foundation. our lunch time speaker will be henry kissinger, former secretary of state who has written a new best-selling book on china. there will be time during our discussion for questions and conversation we hope you will participate in. we encourage all viewers to go to washingtonpostla.com and submit questions. we will end on a light note with a live performance from a new

play by tony award winning playwright david henry huang about an american setting the business in china. you can imagine there are many, culpability -- possibilities. we hope you'll join us for a reception on the rooftop with spectacular views of the capital. we are proud of this building and its extraordinary architecture. unlike to turn the podium over to our first panel which will give us an overview on the day's discussion of china's growing role in the world economy. it will be chaired by someone with great credentials on china and all matters international, david miliband. he was the british foreign minister in 2007, 2010. he was 41 years old when prime minister gordon brown appointed him making him the youngest person to hold the job in 30 years. in 15 years in government and politics he served as minister

of the environment and school. he was the driving force in renewal of labor under tony blair and still labor party member of parliament. his brother is current labor party leader. he is a graduate of oxford university and holds political science degrees from mit. he works as senior global advisor oxford analytica. i will turn it over to david. [applause] >> good morning. i have to start by saying it is a mark of the remarkable generosity of spirit that usually invites the europeans to chair this. strikes me as a mark of your

diplomatic skills that the euro does not appear anywhere in what i am about to chair. i am delighted to be here not just to represent the rest of the world but also to help facilitate the discussion over the next hour and a half or so of this panel. i was trying to think what the framing theme of this conference and what came to mind was a commentary that was written in the wake of the tenth anniversary of 9/11. among -- the historians will write about the three important words. not war on terror but made in china. that is the question we are addressing in this panel and in the rest of the day. chinese leaders stressed they are a developing country of 1 fifty million people with less than $1 day.

the per-capita gdp is 0.1 the u.s. level. that is true but we know the last 30 years of reform and opening up have brought a revolution to that country and a harbinger of the enormous change for the world. a harbinger because there is another revolution coming. change is not stopping in china. four hundred million more people moving into the cities under the five year plan. 50,000 miles of highway. eighteen thousand kilometers of high-speed rail. 30,000 new skyscrapers and higher education and billions devoted to clean tech. in the oxford analytica daily brief published yesterday, one of the eight that comes out on daily rounds, the technology in china, it pointed out by next

year chinese research in nanotechnology will exceed the u.s. level. so this is a veritable second revolution. on this panel we bring some light to what is driving those changes. recent book which marcus referred to, he reminds us of the chinese concept of chi, understanding matters influx. we will try to understand the nature of that. the flex in personnel. 2012 is not just an important year for an american presidential year but a key year of transition for chinese leadership. chinese leadership which new the cultural revolution but not the founding revolution. covers new leadership which was born into an isolated china and

becomes leadership in an age of a connected china. the leadership whose children are global citizens educated at universities around the world. we try to bring out the flux in personnel. the flux in policy too. many of you studied the five year plan which was published in march after it was published. different phrases were used by chinese leaders. a new chapter but the underlying message was clear. the next few years will be governed in a different way than the last few years. with substantive shifts. the speed of growth and quality of growth, domestic consumption emphasized in contrast to an export dependence and shift from saving to welfare will be important to the chinese economy. one of the most remarkable things about the chinese

leadership, one of the most impressive things is how self critical they are. this is not a country blind to the enormous challenge it faces. economic inequality has a significant role. the issue of environmental sustainability. seven of the 12 national targets relate to whoa carbon development. i hope i can look forward to the day the u.s. has seven of 12 national targets relating to low carbon development. i was in china in march. how deep has the rhetoric permeated the system? i was asking that question about electric and low carbon. when i went to reception for fellows given time in the u.k. or had time to work on low

carbon issues and the head of the climate change unit of the chinese central bank, how come the central bank -- we are concerned about food prices. there's a potential link between food price and climate change so the chinese central bank is interested in climate change but every central bank has a climate change unit. i thought that was a very interesting depth of engagement with the low carb an issue. also the political stability which is the overriding concern in which it would be wrong to gloss over. three points that will emerge in the discussion to lead -- led by daniel and elizabeth. the first is innovation in the

chinese economy. the political significance of the phrase one china is obvious that if you look at china economically there are many chinas. cities and regions making their own way and relationships and using some freedom to develop distinctive parts forward. one thing to tease out is how broad is that within the chinese system? secondly the issue of partnerships. last week a very senior chinese energy leader said that the lesson of the unitcow was a lesson for the chinese leadership or the partnership that was the way forward. i hope we can explore the business partnership and what extent it is a 2 way street. the third issue speak to my interest as a politician and diplomat which is international cooperation. my belief is the chinese leaders

are concerned about the weakness of international systems of the moment. there's an article in reuters about the power vacuum of the international stage and that is of concern to chinese leaders. in the traditional role of foreign policy there is great caution about setting precedent for anything of that looks like external interference in internal affairs. i do sense on issues of the international economy there is a chinese willingness and hunger to engage more proactively. i think we will see over the next five years much more significant chinese engagement on g 20s to stabilize the global economy. i hope we can explore that as well. one of the significant issues -- no place to start other than the analysis of the chinese economy today and tomorrow. we couldn't have two better in

producers for that discussion than daniel rosen and elizabeth. they will speak for ten minutes and we will have a conversation and open up to the audience and hope that you will contribute questions and commentss. i will start asking daniel rosen to introduced the topic. >> i will use a few slides if i can. to get us started. let's see. good morning. it is a pleasure to be here at the front of a loaded day of terrific conversation on the topic of china in the world economy. that is the topic of our panel to get started. was critical to have david as the moderator or our topic would be global china, new master of the american economy.

that would be an untenable way to kick off. it is a global impact we are here to look for. i am going to highlight three seems in terms of how china is impacting the world economy and what that looks like. i will touch on china in consumption and production in the world and investment flows in the world. before i get to those three specific points i will set the table with a few basics on what is going on in china and what it means. this is the slide that gives rise to the question is china the new master of the world economy? in some way or another. what it shows is headline gross domestic product over the past decades as recently as 1995 china was no bigger than brazil in headline gdp terms. as recently as 2000 it was half

the size of germany in gdp terms. as recently as 2005 china was two thirds the size of the japanese economy. that is just a few years ago. it is the slope of this curve. extraordinary rapidity with which china's headline gross domestic product has boomed up past these peer competitors of china in days only recently gone by to become a world's second-largest economy that forces us to ask if this is that totally different economic story that we have ever known before and what are its implications in the near term. as one says in britain may be beyond masters have arrived at the table. we are not entirely in our maturity yet. we talk about china's position in the world economy today. after all this exceptional growth china is 9% of

$62 trillion global economy. some considerable distance to go in terms of being on par with the united states for increasingly integrated europe as well. even in the decade ahead as china moves towards parity with the united states we won't be able to forget the average chinese today is half as well off as the global average -- level on americans and europeans who are ten times per-capita as well-off as chinese today. in terms of important functional comparators like china has an outbound direct investors around the world. we're talking about a nation with 3.5% of global outbound direct investment which are it true indication of

globalization. exporting with the help of the walmarts of the world is one thing. being invested in a significant way in the united states and europe which i will come back to and a couple minutes there's a different thing. it marks a different and more significant level of globalization. the fact that china has a long way to go is not the bad news. it is the good news. there's a tremendous amount of structural growth before us that unless china comes off of the rail is likely to deliver most of the growth we see in the world economy in the years ahead. this is the quarterly gdp growth performance of china in recent years. there have been some pronounced effects of what would happen in china's economy over the past few years that turned out to be bad. china has managed to deliver

quarter after quarter world beating gdp growth for the most dramatic events the world economy has seen in a century. we have to take stock of that, give that credit and do our best to understand what contributes to this growth. it is a political risk rather than economic risks which are most likely to get in the way of these dramatic 2030/2057 areas of china as the biggest economy of the world. no nation has done that without adjustments to the political system such as our hard to imagine -- china being able to manage over the next couple years. it raises fundamental questions about china's ability to deliver growth that looks like this. this is china's share of

marginal global risk. of all the new growth in the world economy how much is coming out of china versus the rest of the world? that blue line is us. where we used to be. the united states used to be an outsized chunk of marshall global growth. the base of economic activity means whatever i expected to make for a living yesterday i have a chance of making this year but in terms of growth opportunities on a planet with more and more people at higher expectations that means new economic activity at the margin. with europe and the united states and the crisis here we would be dipping into negative factors in global growth activity. china and india went through the roof. we are reverting back to longer-term pattern should look like. is not the extraordinary contribution that china was responsible for our -- for in the midst of t