i've been asked to help lead the fight against the fight deadliest cancers within congress today. this is something new into to my family, but near and dear to so many other families. there is a place the republicans and democrats can cooperate on. we just passed a bill for cancer in congress. mr. peters didn't even know about but it is a great step in the right direction. what i hope to do with your support, we can engage, we can work together, but we've got to keep both of us that have been identified of those who can work together in congress. and now is the time to build on those of us who are -- not structuring us apart. so with your support, we will not don't get congress moving forward, we will be up to save lives as we are doing it. thank you very much, and god bless. >> moderator: i want to thank both candidates, congress brian bilbray, scott peters, appreciate your insight. and the level to which it engaged.

>> we are live this one at the american enterprise institute. they're holding a panel on the presidential race voting patterns and the latest polls. panelist will also examine the closest senate and house contests and we'll hear from norman ornstein, author of the new york times bestseller, it's even worse than it looks, and "washington examiner" michael barone. >> on behalf of my aei colleagues, michael barone, henry olsen and norm ornstein, i'd like to welcome all of you and our c-span viewers to this, the final pre-election session of aei's election watch program. we will be back on november 8, 2 days after the election for election session where we will be examining the exit poll entrails and try to tell you what happened and why. we hope to see them. in 12 days, or 279 hours, voters will start casting the election day ballots. if tradition holds, the voters

in new hampshire, population 11, will gather at midnight to vote and announced to the world who has won there tiny hamlet. hours later, the exit polls consortium of the five networks and "the associated press," they will fan out across the country at selected precincts, handing out a single page ballot that would be used to explain the results after the polls have closed. for the 26 pollsters have been tracking the contest nationally in recent months, and the six who have been doing daily tracking in, the contest will finally be over. americans have done a lot of complaining in the last few months. we've heard that the campaign is too long. it's too expensive, and it's too negative. but i missed all this i think it's very important to remember that november 6 will be the 57th time in an unbroken succession, stretching back to george washington in 1789, that

americans have freely chosen their chief executive. and if power in the executive shifts on november 6 from the democrats to republicans, it will be the 22nd time in our history that power has shifted from one partisan philosophy to another. shots were fired in 1860 after that election, and there were weeks of wrangling over the contested vote in the 2000 election but the peaceful transfer preceded. i think that's the record that all of us, of which all of us can be very proud. i want to say a word or two about the latest issue of aei's political report. for those of you watching on c-span this will be posted on the aei website, www.aei.org later today. it's a compilation of some of things we don't think you've seen in other polling reports about the election. in it we take a look at the exit poll from past elections to see when voters made up their minds. that's an important criteria. we're looking at the late

deciders of this particular point in the campaign. and then we look at about 22 groups, how they voted in election contest when we've had exit polls since 1972. i don't think there's another collection like this anywhere in washington. and for those of you who are tired of the polls, we have on the last page of the handout some unconventional indicators. so lost on the leno show president obama said he slightly there with the detroit lions, but our indicators are unconventional indicators show that if the lions win the election, mitt romney. the san francisco giants wind, obama is favored. we also look at the redskins record, and they will be playing the carolina panthers in the final game, and the redskins are slightly favored. and if they win, the incumbent is likely to win. just so you have that. now, onto our election panel. in today's abc -- excuse me come in tuesday's abc news "washington post" poll, romney

and obama were separated by seven hundredths of 1%. i don't think i've ever seen anything that close. we're going to turn to michael first to talk about what he sees the election at this point and then hendry will take a look at ohio, the state we're all watching most closely. and, finally, norval look at the senate, compared with and house races. michael, let's begin. >> thank you very much, karlyn, and this is been an exciting election season here. i think we all pretty much agreed we have something of a sea change or significant change in this election after the tour will -- the first debate between barack obama and mitt romney. it seemed to transform the race. before it obama was nearly ahead. now looks like romney has narrowly ahead in the abc "washington post," apparently was one responded out of a thousand or whatever number they had of people there.

one more respond for romney over obama. and he's had in the real clear politics.com average of recent polls but not by a wide margin. by 1%. i think in some ways some people said the debates hinged on style. i think basically what it did is bring back the basic fundamental so of this election. working for president obama is the sense that most americans have that they want to think well of the president, and i think in this case they feel that many people feel that it would be a bad thing for america to be seen rejecting the first black president. working for mitt romney is the idea that most people have not favored obama's signature programs, and most people are disappointed with the sluggish growth in the economy. i think we have a more fluid electorate than we had in 2004, comparison that's often made.

karl rove back and said that only 7% of voters were changeable. scott rasmussen did a poll predebate what he looked at the number of people that said they were clear romney, clear obama. it was 42-41. that suggest something like 70% are potentially changeable, roughly double the magnitude of '04. and i think that we have seen some shift other polling numbers. we've seen a shift in the list of target states. in 2004, the easy way to predict the results was to take the 2000 result, at two points for george bush in each state, and he wouldn't be far off anywhere. in this election in the target list changed so that wisconsin up working for, obama stated 2000 is now at two or three-point state and is clearly in contention. whereas other states that were heavily obama come like washington and new jersey by similar margins, are clearly in

contention. i think one of the things that happen with the debate was that frustrated the obama firewall strategy. the obama people spent something like half of the preconvention money on anti-romney ads in three states. the three states, which aside from indiana and north carolina were the weakest states in percentage terms in 2008. florida, ohio and virginia. and basically with the states they would have 332 electoral votes. they could lose a few other states and still be well ahead of 270. i think what we've seen postdebate is that obama has fallen behind in florida. that virginia isn't even state. you remains about two points ahead in ohio, which henry will talk about. i think that that firewall strategy means that this election is very much in play, and the obama campaign that

romney only had a very narrow window to 270 is no longer correct. election watch last spring and "washington examiner" column i tried it for a couple alternative scenarios to that 2004 center of a long hard slog through a fixed list of target states. and i think at least one of them perhaps two, are happening now. the one that seems to be happening is affluent suburbanites moving towards romney. the affluent suburbanites not southern states have been trending democratic over the last 20 years on cultural issues and other factors. romney, in 2008, obama carried the 75,000 group by 50-49. in current nationwide polls, we're seeing it going for romney by statistically significant margins. that's a change.

the only explanation i can see why states like michigan and pennsylvania, which about a quarter whose votes are cast in affluent suburban counties are close to them perhaps why ohio is slightly it would appear towards obama, only about one-eighth of that state votes cast in affluent those. the other scenario i sketched out is possible but not necessarily likely was the 1980 late swing towards the incumbent, away from the incumbent toward the challenger. that happened in 1980 after an october 27 debate just one week before the election, we saw a very, a very big swing away from jimmy carter and towards ronald reagan. this year think we are saying what might be, if necessary, a slow-motion 1980 with the

october 3 debate ideas for changing some opinion and leaving the question mark over the question of whether or not it would be for the movement in romney's direction. so i which is conclude with that point, and -- >> you were only five minutes. i'm very impressed. henry is going to talk about ohio. we've been watching at aei, ohio for very long time. and i want to refer you to a book written by our emeritus colleague and the great, richard, in 1970. they wrote a book called the real majority. and in that book they identified as the key to the election the dayton housewife. she was from the middle of the country, had a mid-level education. she was a 47 year old catholic married to a machinist, and she's going to be the key to electoral politics in ohio. she became so famous in that election cycle that dick cavett, the late-night talk show,

actually sent a team of producers to ohio to try to find the dayton housewife. and after that, the dayton housewife appeared on the dick cavett show pronouncing about the election. she had a cigarette and it was really quite an experience. but anyway, we've been watching ohio for a very long time here come henry, a new you can tells what it will be the dayton housewife, a cincinnati housewife, what should we be looking at? >> nowadays will probably be likely to be the columbus separated woman with one child. the end of this campaign, i'm just thinking come it's like we're at the end of long running popular tv show, like cheers. in a couple of weeks all of our favorite characters will be gone and will only have our memories. but two years from now, just like cheers, reruns, we can always come back here, look up to the stage and say norm. [laughter]

>> ohio is the most pivotal state because, not only is it the closest large state that's out there that romney needs to win in order to win, but because it's virtually impossible to see a brawny win without a. that if he sweeps the three southern states, that the thought of as potential battlegrounds, virginia, north carolina and florida, he either needs to take ohio and one other of the swing states, or he needs to virtually sweep three or four of the other swing states, depending on how they come out. so what i did to help decipher ohio is put together a list of -- superimposed on a map with the assistance of my research assistant. what we have here, the reason to look at it by media market is because what each of these candidates are going to be traveling, they're doing it with

media in mind, that when somebody goes to an area that's covered dramatically on local news, they get a lot of free publicity in that area. so where a candidate did this, and the candidate is talking about or what audience a candidate is addressing is subtle cues about what their strategy is and who they see as their path to victory. let's start by taking look at as you can see, the democratic strength is in urban areas in the city of dayton, the city of columbus, the city of cincinnati. it's in the southwest part of the state. you see the three blue counties. that's old coal country mining area that's highly white working-class, appellation influence. the county is near the park spurred market, is the home of ohio university. and then you've got the industrial area of lake erie.

and slightly down there. the blue dots show what the democrats have visited. and here you can see, based on where they visited, that they have been employing an early voting strategy. that each place they visited is a place that has a significant -- bursar evan has a significant african-american inner-city population. each one is one where currently, if you look at the ohio early voting totals has overwhelming numbers of people are coming out to vote early. you've got three visits in cleveland, one in lorraine, which has a small and i shall community down road from cleveland, one in 10, again old industrial, small african-american committee. you see that barack obama has visited ohio university down

there in athens county. that's a student strategy. and the one thought in wheeling market is built on. they said that they talked to the area where virtually everyone who votes is going to be culturally like an. this is an early voting strategy. there's only one dot that doesn't fit into that, and that's the one that is two counties north of columbus. joe biden was in there in ohio yesterday and he wasn't there to pay homage to their favorite son, warren g. harding, nor was he there to pay homage to another favorite son, six times socialist presidential candidate norman thomas. he was there because they are starting to move from an early voting to a swing voting strategy. ohio ends early voting next tuesday. they are now going to be going to preserve the gains that they made in the republican county of ohio four years ago.

and that's where the battleground is going to be fought for the next 12 days. it was announced a bill clinton and barack obama will appear together on stage for the first time, the number of swing states among the ohio. let me take a venture and guess and say that they're not going to be visiting in your cities very much. now come to take a look at the romney strategy and they're all over the map. why are they all over the map? because they literally have to be all over the map. george bush carried ohio with about 50.5% of the vote in 2004. john mccain lost it with 46.1%. if you look at where the difference is, the drop, basically romney wins this state if it equals the bush percentage. romney -- the bush percentage dropped most in three media markets. toledo, columbus and cincinnati. those are the three places where he needs to pick up ground where he lost. and the second thing he needs to

do is sustain the ground that they kept. three west virginia markets, making actually outpolled bush. the youngstown media market, mccain ran virtually even. so you see the early trips are in rural area to sustain, try to get the vote back, in west virginia and young towns market to try and devote keep the vote they had. and today wrongly will make three stops in ohio. is going to stop in cincinnati. is going to hit that market. is going to stop in worthington which is a suburb of columbus in franklin market. then he goes to one of the far northwest red counties, a toledo market, which is the county that is one of the highest proportions of auto workers as a percentage of total employment. and perhaps not coincidentally four years ago, was one of the counties that saw one of the largest drop-offs from bush to

making them even though mccain still carried the county. this is going to be the republican strategy. it is to go back to the places of people who voted for george bush in 2004, people who voted for barack obama in 2008, and convince them it's time to come back. what do i think is going to happen? all of the polls suggest that this is one of mitt romney's toughest states. as michael pointed out, it's less affluent than a number of other states. as it has fewer people. it's affluent counties are less affluent than affluent counties elsewhere. it's a hard hit state over the last decade. there are polls in ohio and in wisconsin and iowa that ron brownstein is written about that suggests that as i feared, six months ago, that blue collar white vote that needs to be turned up by romney overwhelmingly to win is

actually not doing that. that in all three of these midwestern states, they are not responding to the romney message that would be consistent with the idea that a choice between a populist income at who has had a so-so record, and a business executive who seems to use the obama discretion, out of touch with middle class and working class aspirations. that enough of them will either stay home or will support the president to fuel a narrow victory. one glimmer of opportunity for the romney campaign, and that is that by very small margin, ohio continues to have a higher percentage of undecided voters in other swing states. it's about average six and a half% compared to about four, 445% of this thing states. there are still people who have not made up their mind, and that suggests that if romney can cut the gap within the next week or so to about a point, and maybe he can eke away on top because

as the data suggest, those people will break roughly 85 or 60-40 against the intend the paper right now looks like a very tough road to hoe for the romney-ryan team, and in part driven by a ohio's unique demographics and the very confident strategy that's been executed by the president. >> thank you very much. norm, i think a year ago most people in this room would've said that it looks like pretty good year for the republicans in terms of the senate. but things are clearly change. can you tell us a little bit about the senate and the governors races and the house at this point? you should all have a handout that includes the latest prediction from larry stabile, charlie cook and stu rothenberg, prognosticators we work with on a bigger basis. and i think are watching these races very, very closely, as is norm. norm. >> thanks, karlyn. i would say to start that it will tell you an awful lot of our culture that we've gone from i think the dayton housewife to

honey boo boo. i just arrived yesterday from the west coast where it was 82 and 40, just like clint eastwood. [laughter] and i want to thank glen for cutting a commercial yesterday to keep the half-life of that joke going for another week or 10 days. there's a lot we could say about both the nature of the contest and ohio which we can get to, but just to start with the senate. as karlyn said, with 23 seed so by democrats, only 10 held by republicans, and looking at it from the perspective of a year or even six months ago, where it appeared that make one or two of those republican seats would be affordable to challenge, and half or more of the democratic seats, there seem to be a very strong possibility, even a likelihood that republicans could contest for a majority of the senate.

keep in mind, the one small caveat that the majority, number of net seats needed to change depends on who wins the white house. if mitt romney wins the white house, republicans or need a net of three. if barack obama wins, they need a net of four because of course the vice president cast the tie-breaking vote. but even with those numbers, the imbalance suggested that republicans were in great shape the about has changed. if you look at the 10 republican seats up for contest now, there are at least five where you're either in a tossup category or where republicans are likely to lose. are likely to lose category starts with maine, with the independent former governor angus king seems to have pulled into a comfortable lead in that race. king has refused to announce whether he will caucus with democrats or republicans, or not caucus with any party at all. but since the republican party

adopted a strategy of attacking him, and i tried to push up the democratic candidate to try and make it a three-way contest where he could lose, they have probably insured if there were any doubt before that he would caucus with the democrats. and feminist states like indiana where just as with a few contest in 2010, primaries have taken out a sure winner which dick lugar was, and turned into a very different kind of contest. this morning my guess is that richard mourdock's office and hope were being flooded with deliveries of flowers saying keep it up, from the obama campaign and from the joe donnelly campaign, since mourdock's statement yesterday, which got into a contest with todd taken over who could say the more inflammatory thing

about rape and abortion, but all of it coming of course badly timed, the day after a commercial in which mitt romney right into the camera endorses richard mourdock, and with footage of him standing next to mourdock sang, he wants to be part of his team. i would note here that may have a small, admittedly very small impact on the presidential campaign. if you have a couple of days, particularly from the last debate in which mitt romney made the pivot, i think the most striking that just gets moved i've seen, -- etch-a-sketch -- to a modern position, don't worry, you can trust us. that this is not exactly reinforce that message. it forces a couple of days we have to focus on other things. and also something that's

beginning to spill over into other senate contests by candidates or been forced to either get distance from mourdock, or embrace what he said that if you look at the statement made at john cornyn who's the head of the republican senatorial campaign committee, is a very uncomfortable, i can't get distance from another nominee after we cut off todd akin, but boy, i don't want to get into this thicket at all. then if you throw in states like massachusetts where elizabeth warren at least seems to have pulled out to a small and statistically significant but still not insurmountable lead, in arizona where jeff flake had to go through very late primary in which he was roundly criticized within his own party, and richard carmona, into his own recent gaffe, making a joke about candy crawley in an inopportune moment, but a former bush surgeon general and an iraq war veteran has proven to be a

strong candidate. and in nevada with a superior turnout effort of the harry reid machine has kept shelley berkley within striking distance of dean heller, you've got a different kind of contest the democrats are not going, are not likely to win all five of those contests, but everyone that they win means that republicans have to win an extra seat to move closer to that majority. and while we have one sure thing i think out there in terms of a turnip, and that's nebraska, where the democratic hopeful and former senator bob kerrey is going to be walked -- want by jeff fisher. and many other states where republicans thought that they would have a wide open opportunity to take seats. in wisconsin where connie thompson has done, not what a very effective campaign and its in a tossup contest in florida where connie mack proved to be a pretty poor candidate against

bill nelson eddy seems to be pulling away. in michigan where pete hoekstra has not been anything close to closing the sale against debbie stabenow. they're not a strong position as they might've been. there's still plenty of opportunities, and that includes places like montana where it's been a dead heat for months on end. but in other states like north dakota which should've been a romp come with a close contest as well. so i would say the odds of republicans taking the senate, unless it turns out to be a 1987 are as likely just did with the floodgates open over the next 10 days for mitt romney, and i still believe it looks more like 2004 to me than it does like 1980. beyond the republicans win the senate are fairly slim. they are still greater than the odds of democrats taking a

majority in the house of representatives. democrats are probably going to lose 10 of their own seats. most of them are moderates, the remaining moderates. so they would need 35 net or more to take majority of the house. and it's simply not in the cards, not doable. there are opportunities there, and i would be surprised if democrats don't peek into the republican majority but a bit, but if it's more than single digits, that would be a striking issue by pick a spot going to be more like seven, eight or nine seats net. there are a few i would say gubernatorial contests that are interesting to look at your most of them are not particularly interesting eric i did find it striking that mike pence, who appears to be coasting to victory in indiana went out of his way to get distance from richard mourdock yesterday,

which i can't quite figure it out. the most interesting contest to meet is in new hampshire where the perennial candidate of sorts is at least dead even in terms of the gubernatorial contest on. >> a student of mine many years ago at catholic university. in other places where democrats had hoped to do well like mozilla, they are not. and in washington and in missouri were democrats out there would be in deep trouble, they were probably favorite a little bit. there isn't much going on in the gubernatorial level this time because of course they contests were in the midterm election last time. and that's going to be what's most interesting to watch two years from now, whether states continue to be in battle by an economy that is a backlash against many of those governors, many of whom in states like michigan, ohio and florida and wisconsin remain quite unpopul

unpopular. but that's something for another day. >> thank you very much, norm. because her panelists have been very disciplined we have a half hour for your questions. while you think about your questions, i would like just to say thank you to andrew rowe, a research assistant who is my copilot on an eight-yard political report. jennifer who attended with his hand up today, and also to many, a great deal of work for norm, brad wozniak who attended with his slide, and our to in turn to provide a lot of help at the last minute. michael said he would like to set the word in response to norm before we turn to your questions and then returned to your questions. >> just a brief were in response to both henry and norm. on the importance of ohio, many people say it's totally is positive towards the election. i don't think henry went there. i think it's is a very important but currently if you look at real clear politics, ron is

header even in states with 257 electoral votes, and within two points states with 285, within five points in states with 337. obama is within five points, ahead, even are within five points of 332, similar numbers. he's ahead in more states and with more electoral votes in the current state polling. i think both have ways to get the 270. romney wants very much to carry ohio. by the old rule about republicans never winning the presidency without winning ohio which supports both in times when ohio had a whole lot more electoral votes than florida. 1960s, at 26 electoral votes, florida, 14. is no ohio 18, florida 29. so it's very important if not totally essential. i think hendry made the right balance on that. in the senate races, as norm said, i agree with norm's total output to the republicans are in

trouble in arizona and indiana come to states were no sensible republican should be in trouble. and on the other hand, you know, it's a possibility, our member sitting down with but didn't employ peter harvey before the 1980 election, and peterson we're going to go through an exercise in see if the republicans can win a majority in the city. we are starting off with 41 seats. and we went down the list and we basically came to the conclusion yes, republicans can win but they would have to win virtually all the close races. and so it's not going to happen. well, it happened. then republicans lost eight of those seats six years later in close races as well. when i look at the races in theocratic held seats, i see seven states in which democrats are leading but under 50% in polling. that says to me those are not necessarily locked in seats, including florida.

connecticut, florida, missouri, ohio, pennsylvania, virginia and wisconsin. so i think with a strong romney run there is the possibilities of republicans winning majority in the senate are not dismal, but they depend on running some of those seven races and turning those under 50% democrats into losers. >> i had a couple of comments as well. one is i have more respect these days for stu spencer iran's romney iran's romney's campaign than i did before, as he went through a whole season of not saying anything about romney and letting him be defined elsewhere. but if you look at the pivot romney has now made, watching the third debate and as romney endorsed the international

criminal court, i was waiting for the explosion from the 11th floor here as john to death, one. [laughter] but there was nothing. the fact is he managed to get conservatives in the in his camp that he could make a pivot endorsing most of obama's foreign policy. and doing things like that without losing the base which is really quite striking, and what he can continue that move is going to be interesting to just two of the comments to on ohio. all passionate obama has opened up more field offices that starbucks has which is really astonishing. and romney has not. the ground game differences are really striking here, and how much difference that makes them just to go to get voters enthusiastic and i suspect the final days that obama's going to be spending as much or more time getting his own voters enthusiastic as he is aiming at

those independence. but the early voting has helped. and recover will be early voting in ohio friday, saturday, sunday. that's what the supreme court allowed big limited hours. but declined unanimously to review it. and after an appeals court said that the early voting should apply. the hours are limited but sunday voting is one that in the past has proved to be extraordinary for particularly african-american voters to go right after church. so there is a path for romney without ohio, but it's a long and winding path and then finally just one comment, as you watch these polls, it includes the real politics average which is a terrific thing to do, one of the things were seen in these final days is that in all these swing states to rasmussen is going in and pulling every day and sometimes twice a day. and if you look at polls like rasmussen or public policy polling, these are noble goals.

they cannot by law call cell phones. and there's a very substantial difference in the voting inclination. so cell phone voters and non-cell phone voters. you have to be very careful as you look at these polls. also of course the national polls as john buckley put out the other day, a look at what is a real possibility of romney winning the popular vote and losing the electoral college, those change a little bit i enormous level of support among white voters since henry has talked about in the south. he's not pulling those white voters in ohio which is one of them increases, but the overall national numbers do not necessarily reflect what matters, which is in the states which we've been talking about. >> two quick points. the reason i still think ohio is very key is because if romney doesn't win ohio, he really has to win wisconsin. if he's not going to run the table in the swing states, and

if you don't think there's going to be a massive swing around the that will make individual state calculations roughly irrelevant. is closer in ohio and he is in wisconsin, despite ryan being on the ticket. and historically, ohio has been anywhere from one to three points more republican in a given year than wisconsin. which is why romney is here in ohio today and he's not doing a tour of madison, green bay and milwaukee. secondly, on the blue-collar question. as michael pointed out, the last election, there's a big difference between southern whites without a college degree and midwestern and eastern whites without a college degree. i suspect if you could get below what you even see it's more start, but the blue-collar whites in the rust belt states and in iowa are substantially more likely to be catholic or

non-evangelical protestants. and when you take a look at where the swing against obama was last time, where the breakdown in ohio is, i suspect that if you're going to break that down on election day, you will see the same weakness and that romney has been less able to connect than the republicans were two years ago, non-english descendents evangelical protestants, defend or the swede, the german catholic in dubuque, the catholic in lake erie, and that will be if he loses the reason why he lost. >> let's turn to your questions now. please identify yourself if we will start over. if you can wait for the microphone. >> tell us who you are.

>> thank you. thanks to having us again and again. i'm a u.s. correspondent for swiss newspapers but i have a question for you, henry. you haven't mentioned the governor of ohio at all in your analysis. was that on purpose or you don't think he plays a role? >> i've never found that governors matter a whole lot in presidential races. they don't poll states along with it. they can help of volunteer but their stamping or their popularity almost never actually comes over. the one thing i should've mentioned, i didn't though, is that the case it raise from two years ago is a good indicator. made ronnie's weakness. which is that john kasich after he left congress came from an investment bank backer and accuse running against somebody,

before he was governor, was a representative from that west virginia part of ohio, and they rent a class warfare campaign. it was eyes on the side of the working class man, he comes on the site of the wealthy. and kasich in the atmosphere by 2010 only won by about two points. and if you look, he did much better in the affluent suburbs than he did in working-class areas. one of the things i will be looking at, may talk about after the election is the degree to which the kasich-strickland indicators is what the romney did or did not hit his target in 2012. >> question here.

>> [inaudible] >> did it is ago against the incumbents in the final days? >> i think a lot of data has been crunched to suggest that they don't necessarily go against the incumbent. want to end once the data here suggest that they go against the leader by a margin of about five to four, or maybe six to four. so let's do the math. if there's 6% undecided in ohio, and they broke against the leader, which in this case is obama, by about six to four, that will gain a point to a point and have on the margin for romney. so if obama is really up by about a point and a half, that suggests a nailbiter. if obama is really up by two to four, which other polls suggest, that suggests a close loss. but you can't just take 6% and save you all go to romney. there's really no evidence. >> i'm not clear, it's not clear to me that people have a clear

awareness of who the leader is at this point. real clear politics.com averages 48, romney 47. obama. depending on which poll you look at, what waiting to give to them, as you suggested some people discount rasmussen, some people discount public policy polling. you could regard -- either one as the lead. i think we should lose sight of the fact that the incumbent president of the united states is at 47%. now, sometimes folks simply don't vote. certainly number built into participating. but 47%, which the obama people thought was the magic number that would put mitt romney into water, this stage what you mentioned it. is not an entirely happy number for barack obama spent and i'm not saying that the election is over. this is in the zone of

uncertainty, where lots of things can happen, 12 years ago when george bush was ahead three to six points, depending on the poll and news of his drunk driving arrest. and just stopped his progress but he didn't lose votes but he gained no votes. and al gore stormed and if i did kerry to win the popular vote. and who knows what the next 12 days are going to bring. but looking at the data carefully, i don't want to discount the possibility that michael is right at all. far from me to do that. i just think there's lots of reasons i think that in ohio, it's looking a little stronger for obama than it is for from the. and that the opportunities to win an electoral victory absence of late 1980 break against the president are difficult to see.

>> the question here and then there. right here in front. >> i'm very casselman. i'm from minneapolis. i blog as the prairie editor and writer for several publications here in washington. my question is for michael, but obviously for the other panelists as well. many, myself included, have been critical of the polling has taken place, most cases, not all, throughout this campaign season. and my criticism is, one of the things that happens in almost every poll is there waited and they are weighted based on democrats, republican, and it's my impression, especially when i look at the meat of the polls where they can explain the sampled is that there's an over

waiting democratic voters this cycle based pretty much on previous races that may not be applicable. i'd like your comments spent well, karlyn has written and talked about this at some length. you know, basic point techniques were developed in a country which from the mid '60s to mid-2000 was a country with universal phone land lines and a population that answered the phone when it rang. [laughter] we no longer live in such a country. the pew research center reports that only 9% of calls initiate result in a completed interview. are those 9% representative of the larger voting public? we hope so, but we're not entirely sure. we do know that exit polling has tilted to hearing degrees towards democrats and that in the 2008 democratic primaries,

and tilted have a towards barack obama. part of that was interviewer bias. i'll let you guess in which direction, which party's direction that work. but part of it is pundits of willingness to be pulled but it appears exit polls. so you now i do look with some suspicion on some of these polls that show a larger democratic advantage of party identification in states where the nation and was the case in 2008. that seems suspicious to me. we have to keep in mind the party identification questions are different in different polls so that the question, responses are not always commensurate with the exit poll with which we typical -- typically compare. but, you know, karlyn has talked about, the thing is we know it, it may become as obsolete as, i

fear to say, print journalism has become. >> if i could add a few things to what michael has said. i think this is a business, very problems. the response richmond 9% response rate, it's hardly they can go much lower than that. most of the major national pollsters do not wait for party identification. in the united states. it's not true in britain but here, here they consider party identification and attitude, not a demographic. they weight for all the standard demographics because the census tells us how many men and women that are in the publishing of how many 18 to 20 euros and those over the age of 55 but by some of the pollsters in the united states are now reading for party invitations they're providing us with two very different pictures of where the election is. those that are waiting for party identification like you, showed no particular pickup for mitt romney after the first debate where as those who did not weight for party identification

showed a romney came after the first debate. so very different things going on. as michael just said i would not be surprised if we do not see telephone calls by 2020. a third of households up from 17% in 2084 years ago, cell phones only as michael said, pollsters can't reach those households in the same way. this is a business that has very, very series problems. >> and one thing, when i get into a bowl i always look at rpi. but that's the. people's ratio attachments are not limited to either art or not not like the one thing that i find is that all of the polls that came to shove romney with larger leaves in my opinion underweight and nonwhite folks to a gallup poll would have run it by seven didn't show in public what it's white, nine -- nonwhite percentage was. but i did backward calculation.

rongji carried whites by x. and nonwhites by why. and it worked out that the overall numbers made sense if the voting population was 80% white. voting population hasn't been 80% white and a center. so romney was never hit by 7.6 that was the problem. they are screening out nonwhite voters. the "washington post" poll that showed romney up by one person shows 24% nonwhite. it was 24% nonwhite in 2010. that was 26% nonwhite in 2008. that's an optimistic republican, which suggests to me, over the next week that's one of the key factors i will be looking at. because the differences between white and nonwhite voting is so stark that even a one point underestimation of the nonwhite share basically shifts about one point on the margins. >> just another comment. this is important step because

everybody will be following these polls. there's a reason why the gallup poll has shown in its tracking surveys why fluctuations. and they also sell show in party identification is which normally are pretty stable. and that is another problem with the surveys which is who's going to answer the phone? the people who are enthusiastic, if something good has happened you will want to talk to a pollster to talk about it. something that has happened you're not going to want to do so. and if you look at, peter has written a very interesting analysis, they do computer-based polling also did a panel survey. they have taken the same voters and ask them questions before the first debate and after the first debate. and found almost no difference. very sharp distinction from other surveys. because there was no enthusiasm gap in this case. the same groups of people. and all of it tells us simply that you need to take these

surveys with an enormous grain of salt. >> everybody agrees that the first debate swung the voters towards romney. what i'd like to know is how many of those before were committed obama voters? and what does that say about the future? and people who say they're committed to voters be changed at all? >> i think what we saw at the outset of the debate was after the democratic convention, we saw a drop in and decided and the movement towards what we call weekly attached. running throughout the summer time a little under 10% of the votes said they were undecided. after the two conventions that dropped to around 6%. and that's when you thought obama up by couple%. we are seeing people who are now weekly attached as they get

closer election day, they will become strong attached and close we could to election day, the less likely it is we are going to move people. but at this point are still people who are weekly attached and they can be moved. >> my name is ruth oldfield. journalist with the dutch delegation. there's a consensus that debates really don't move elections but we have seen that the first debate did. can you parse for us the way this, the last debate in terms of foreign policy may or may not have moved some voters block? in florida has made romney a viable candidate for other groups of people. >> i would say, you know, i think i disagree with norm in terms of, if he saying that romney has hugely switched his positions on these issues.

i think the are you could be made that his positions have been pretty intellectually consistent by the standards of candidates over the years. and, indeed, somewhat more so perhaps. but indirectly, it seemed to me that romney's performance in that last debate did to kind of interesting things. number one, he was talking about how much he wanted peace. he did want to have war with afghanistan's or iraq's. i think you're speaking particularly to women voters, particularly the college educated women, group that he seems to be making significant gains with as compared to john mccain's performance in 2008, or perhaps george w. bush's performance in 2004. i think also that it's partly, the germaneness of scandinavia's so of america if you will, iowa

and wisconsin, two states that are very much target states. in minnesota where rasmussen report on a five-point obama lead, although it's not anybody's target state at this point. does have always been a pacifist isolationists parts of america, relatively speaking. and i think barack obama's both i kill osama bin laden, not as big a plus in those states among some people who have been voting democratic as they are and many others. and romney talk about peace but the other thing he did was talking about tumult and chaos in the world. i think that libya situation has hurt barack obama, by giving people a sense that is promised in 2007 in 2008, if you elect me, the world will love america.

and the muslim world in particular will love america because hey, my dad was a mosque. i think that's what's happened in libya, tends to undercut that, the differing explanations that we've had from the president, the administration, about it, intent to cut the. and it clearly has eroded what was an obama lead of foreign policy to a point where it's about a parody. and romney, by talking about tumult, chaos, things spinning out of control is trying to play about. speak i would just say let's go to the videotape and i would commend all of you, "the daily show," which did a juxtaposition of things that romney said in the primary campaign and things he said in the debate which i think probably move a bit beyond the usual margin of candidates. but he did it -- as i said, it seems to have come it doesn't

seem to have excited a base that he has moved. in terms of debates and movement, we do see debates with his movements and its distinctive and it's important to i think the only election where i would point to where the debate might been decisive was 1980. partly because there was one debate and it was 10 days before the election. but it was equation of whether a challenge at a time when an incumbent was extreme and popular and voters clearly wanted a change, were not convinced the challenger was over the bar of acceptability. and when reagan got over that part easily, the floodgates broke. i just don't see -- idc the first debate as one where romney got over the bar of acceptability or a large number of voters and are open to him. that's a big, big deal. but i don't see the memos but i did see it much in of the debate. we did a survey of undecided voters by before the third debate. a third of them were undecided but leaning towards romney.

a third were undecided but leading towards obama and the other third were undecided whether they would watch monday night football or the seventh game of the baseball playoffs. >> we have time for one more question. i'd like to remind you we would be back on november 8 for a lunch. i hope you'll be able to join us as we talk about the election results. the final question goes year. >> sylvester williams from elizabethtown college. i'm just curious about the impact that minority voters are going to play in the swing states, florida, virginia, north carolina, ohio with hispanics and african-americans, compared to 2008. >> you've got african-americans are going to vote heavily for obama everywhere. the obama campaign as henry indicated has been concentrated in mean ways of turning a low propensity voters, which include many african-americans. we talk about the nonwhite vote. it's not uniform.

obama is doing very well, probably perhaps even better with hispanics in 2012 than he did 2008, but hispanics in florida, and surveys i've looked at all about evenly divided, as they were in the 20002010 governor race, for example, republican governor rick scott carried hispanics. not a warm and fuzzy liberal republican, but nonetheless did so. a lot of the hispanics there cubans. you have puerto ricans in orange and osceola counties who are not as heavily democratic as puerto ricans in new york and new jersey. the other group the point he is a just that nobody has looked at very much. most asians, the voters classified in california and hawaii, which not exactly target states. agents in northern virginia, i

think that's the biggest asian group in a target state. the republicans have been working pretty hard in fairfax county. and if you listen to romney's answer in immigration in the second debate, he was trying to be more palatable to latino voters who see an anti-illegal immigrant stance as being one hostile to hispanic people. but it was mostly, it was aimed precisely at asians. ..

this population is coming very, very fast. it's something republicans have to deal with going forward, but they still at least have a translation problem. the african-american population is a very slow growing population and that will affect elections going forward. henry? >> first the long white vote is crucial. he's going to lose the white vote. the question is the size of the margin. every mom white voter particularly hispanic or african-american is 80 to 85% likely to be a vote for him. that said, and ohio this is literally a black-and-white

state there is no appreciable non-hispanic or asian population anywhere in ohio. early voting is exclusively focused on the african-american community. it said among non-whites which they had a 24% of the electorate president obama was carrying 79% which is what he did four years ago which was 95, 95% ahead of african-americans running ahead with hispanics and together the stick of 20 to 24% so if he is running even among african-americans among hispanics he must be running dramatically because that is the way the math can work out if you're doing great her own 80% of the sample and equal and all the sample you must have a substantial asian drop-off and that could on the margin it's a 5050 ressa impact to the state

like virginia white hispanic voting. assuming romney does one floor above and it's an interesting election nevada and colorado are the states where the hispanic population is important. those are also states where the mormon population is more important. >> henry you have the last word and i want to thank my panelists for a wonderful presentation and we will see you on november 8. [applause]

[inaudible conversations]

would you support military action in iran? >> if need be, yes as a last option, yes. >> under what conditions? >> if sanctions don't work, if they are close to and about two have the ability to develop a nuclear bomb, we use every option possible as well israel and that will be the last option we would have to use the we would have it ready to use. some credit we start with israel and the military options

shouldn't be on the table -- >> under what conditions? >> i can't tell you what i would be but we better exact everything else and at the end of the day if that is what is the deadline still serving. i know there was a need but i will be the first. we are going to have the god's honest discussion about what is needed.

yesterday national security advisers from the obama and romney campaign debate foreign and domestic policy issues related to china in any event here in washington. the event was hosted by the johns hopkins school and the committee of 100, an organization composed of chinese-american business, government and academic leaders whose goal is to encourage dialogue among the u.s. and china. this is just over two hours. [applause] >> thank you, professor friedberg. and welcome, everyone. it's such a delight to see an overcrowding room, and we have overflow areas we had to open at the last minute. i think we are approaching farco

violation but more impressive than this exciting turnout is the diversity of the representation today. think tanks, academia, ngos to the policy community and the diplomatic corps want to mention there are more than 40 media organizations here tonight to cover this event, and in addition to this dynamic onsite audience here we are joined by viewers from around the world. we can see that there is a wide stream broadcast as well as c-span live coverage and i want to note that among these watching remotely, there will be several simultaneous viewing party organizer of the country will be at columbia university in new york. it will be at the university of california at berkeley for all of us yale university in new

haven. i am very excited to anticipate this exchange with the audience during the q&a session. we are proud to partner with the china studies program here at sais to host the debate this evening and i also want to note that today's discussion is the only china focus the debate in which both campaigns have agreed to go on record. we are uniquely privileged to convene this debate to discuss a topic that is quite critical and the relationship is definitely the world's most strategic bilateral relationship and tonight's program will include 90 minutes of uninterrupted debate on the key foreign and domestic policy issues related to the u.s.-china relations and then we will conclude with a question and answer period the

would be questions collected from all of you as well as audience from around the world footer, e-mail -- at utter email. we have the commission on presidential debates and there are two sections of questions. professor lampton, one of our co moderator's addressed the first section with six questions and mr. benjamin our other co moderator will address the second questions six questions. speakers will each have a minute and have to respond followed by a 32nd rebuttal. and in keeping with proper debate decorum, i'd like to review a number of rules of engagement. first of all, please, take this time now to take out your mobile phone and anything that makes millions and switched the silent mode. what you can do, secondly now

and tonight's program, you can tweet and e-mail quietly with questions and comments about the debate and the twitter hash tag is chinadebate2012 and the e-mail at the committee 100 is reasearchatcommittee100.org. we ask that you accept the framework and refrain from of walls and any sort of accepted that the expression that may potentially interrupt tonight's program. thank you. now please join me in welcoming our veteran moderator's mr. benjamin wu. mr. wu is the vice chairman of the committee 100 for the washington, d.c. region coming and his collaborators professor david lampton of the china studies program here at sais and

a very venerable member of the committee of 100 the national advisory council, very dear to us. professor lampton will now give remarks on behalf of sais. >> thank you come angie and welcome to everybody. on behalf of our new dena, i want to welcome you to johns hopkins school of advanced international studies. whether you are here in person or viewing on television or participating online, we welcome your involvement and we are glad you are joining us. sais is a graduate level institution dedicated to producing international relations, leadership and knowledge for the world. we have campuses in washington, bologna italy and china and they are all tomb duenas we speak. sais couldn't be happier than to cohost with the committee of 100 which has done so much to bring reason and balance to

discussions with and about china. we think that the batres and the respective campaigns for making this evening possible and without further ado, let me return the microphone to angie tang. >> thank you, professor lampton. this evening we are honored to have to highly respected representatives from both campaigns participating in this nationally televised debate and representing the obama campaign is dr. jeffrey bader of the national security adviser committee of the president obama's reelection campaign. speaking for the romney campaign as dr. aaron friedberg the culture of mitt romney's asia pacific working group. during the debate members of the audience, that's all of you here, are invited to write on questions for the speakers on this note card which you will find on your seat. please come hand your note card

to the monitor roaming around the room and include your name and affiliation on this note card. these questions will be collected for the question and answer session. last, you will be reminded that on-line viewers you can e-mail your questions to research@emadine100.org. i would like to ask the moderator's to pick up the formation and start the debate. >> thank you very much. we have had the floor of the claim, and the first introductory remarks will be to jeffrey bader and after friedberg will be aaron. >> thank you to angie and carlo and i also want to acknowledge my friends ambassador roy in the

committee to the committee of 100 sais for having this event. i've had the pleasure of working with committee 100 for the better part of two decades. it is a bastion of the u.s.-china relationship and is seen as such by people throughout the country and especially in the united states government. also want to let all which my good friend, sharon friedberg from the poll discussions here. i was honored and proud to serve in the obama administration from 2009 to 2011 and helping to craft a comprehensive and innovative policy towards asia that has increased prestige in the region. a large part of the asia policy, the foundation of it is that constructive and multifaceted relationship with china. the opportunity that i had to serve came at a crucial moment

in history as china's rise is causing it to encounter and a bump up against countries in the region increasing prosperity in regions and also increasing anxiety and as china is having a greater and greater impact on the global economy. managing the relationship between the u.s. and china and ensuring that in the 21st century we would become partners and would be the chief challenger are dribbling in all foreign policy in the coming years. thank you and i look forward to the discussion. >> well, let me join in thinking the moderator's and organizers and all of you here. it's a pleasure for me to be here and it is an honor also to share the stage with ambassador bader, who is a distinguished diplomat scholar whom i admire very watch. i suspect jeff and i will agree on many things.

let me suggest four at the outset. the importance of china and asia more worldly. asia and china seems likely to be the key country in the ki region in the world and the 21st century. and as angie suggested the relationship between the united states and china is likely to be the most important bilateral relationship in the world. secondly, there is uncertainty regarding china's trajectory. is it going to continue to grow rapidly or will we experienced setbacks? will its system evolved towards greater openness or will that continue to be ruled as it is today by a one-party regime? will let rise peacefully in terms of facts external policies or would pursue more assertive or potentially even aggressive policies and its reach? sir, i suspect we would agree also on the long-term objectives of american policy in asia and towards china. i think what the united states

wants is a peaceful and prosperous region made up of nations that are linked together by trade and institutions and whose governments share a commitment to the protection of human rights and political freedom. i think we probably also agree on the outlines of u.s. strategy because i think that strategy has been pursued with variations for 20 years by republican and democratic administrations since the end of the cold war and it combines two elements i think we are going to talk about both on the one hand, engagement and on the other what i would call balancing. where i think we may differ is in the mix of those elements and the specific policies they are made up my own view is the policy of the current administration has been inconsistent, inadequate the integrated and has ultimately been an effective triet it's too often mistaken process for strategy and rhetoric for

action. policy has to be judged by its results and the results have not been good. bilateral relations between the united states and china today are strained. they continue to be of assertively even aggressively towards its neighbors including some who our treaty allies of the united states. it continues to be on helpful on a range of pierpont importance to the u.s. especially nuclear non-proliferation. it continues to engage in an array of economic practices that give an unfair advantage to its own companies. as it has been doing for over 15 years now it continues to expand its capabilities in ways that pose an increasing challenge to our ability to defend our allies and preserve freedom of navigation. our friends and allies i think are uncertain about the direction of the policy and are staying power. i think some worry that first that the current administration is being oversolicitous towards china.

i think in general please welcome its increasing emphasis on the asia-pacific region. but they worry about being drawn into a rivalry between the united states and china and they wonder ultimately if we will have the resources and the results to follow through providing we need a china strategy that's realistic and steady that continues to pursue dialogue and cooperation were never possible but which advances our economic interest, upholds and defends what we believe to be universal values, coordinates with our allies, preserves a favorable balance of power in the region and is strong without being unnecessarily antagonistic or provocative if elected this is the kind of strategy governor romney intends to pursue and i look forward to the opportunity to discuss these issues. >> thank you very much. the first question goes to aaron and it certainly follows nicely after the introductory remarks. about a year ago the united states rolled out its renamed

rebalancing policy. what are your candidates views on the policy and the subsequent adjustments, strengths, weaknesses and how would u.s.s. china -- assess china's's responsive it >> the increased emphasis on the asia-pacific region seems to me is prudent and in some ways over deutsch -- overdue. i think there have been criticisms of the way in which the policy has been described and the rhetoric that's been used by the administration to talk about it and talk about the return to asia and the pivot to asia and balancing the problem in some of this language particularly talking about a pet and return is that it implies some of that the united states

is fickle, that we were gone from the region and we have somehow come back. that is in the case. the talking about it in that way reopen the question if we brought it back we might prevent a way -- pivot away. the current policy seems under riis resources. a lot has been talk and it's also stirred some concern among our allies. the question going forward is whether the united states is going to have the resources to fulfil some of the kind of mess that we have made implicitly or explicitly in the last year and year-and-a-half and i think everybody in the region as watching. we would include in that there is uncertainty in the part of chinese observers about not about the intentions of the united states because we come to in china and prevent its rise

but there is doubt about the ability of the united states to follow through. there are many people in china who believe the united states is in decline. >> we will come back to that. jeff, your response? >> three balancing four pivot of the united states to the asia-pacific region is something that the administration has pursued since day one. it was the view of president obama and his top advisers where the u.s. was overrated in some places in the world, notably iraq and in the most dynamic region in the world, namely the asia-pacific region. the decision to rebalanced was the result of a strategic decision and a result the was also the demand driven over and over from senior officials and my first multitude from partners and allies in the region about the importance of stepping up

our involvement in the region and our influence in the region. i believe if we test the proposition by talking through the region will verify this that the rebalancing has been overwhelmingly welcomed throughout the region. if you go to pretty much any capital that is the answer you will hear. it's multifaceted. it has a dimension which the media focused on considerably and which president obama rolled out on his trip in november of 2011 by announcing the rotation of marines and to australia and also house economic settlements in the trans-pacific partnership and who has diplomatic elements in the opening of a new relationship with burma and myanmar that hillary clinton highlighted on her trip and the decision to join the east asia

soudet summit, something the previous administration hadn't done and this is likely to be premier institution in the world in the years to come and president obama decided that we had to be in that to help shape that. >> thank you the rematch. the second question is going to jeff. both candidates have expressed the desire to seek the best possible relationship with china. what means with each of your candidates adopt to accomplish this and what are the limits they foresee in building such a partnership or positive relationship? what are two areas, specific areas your candidate sees as having the greatest potential for cooperation? >> we have had for years to demonstrate how we are going to conduct the relationship and hope for a second term. i would say that the key

elements, the balance between a strong and positive relationship with china combined with strong and powerful relations with our partners and allies in the region to the you can't do one without the a4a. secondly it is critical to set priorities to understand what's important in the relationship, what could be potentially disruptive and throw you off the track for example in declaring the currency manipulator on the first day in office is the kind of thing i regard as upside down policies and would be highly disruptive. i would say that the third factor is maintaining a strong posture in the region come strong forward deployed military presence and finally respect to china in the last few years

chinese leaders and the chinese intellectuals often tell us they'll look back on their history in the last century or two and have a sense of humiliation and discontinuing cents that the united states is never going to accept china's rise. we need to demonstrate that we truly respect with china is doing in the rise and we are not simply seeking to impose an international system without its active participation. >> i think the way governor romney has described his objective with regard to china is to fold. on the one hand to seek the best possible relationship with china to encourage china and engage in cooperative efforts not only in the united states but others in the region and in the world that pursue convergent interests to encourage china to move in that direction but at the same time

to maintain a sufficient strength from behaving in ways that are counter to the interest of the united states and others in the region which may be disruptive in the long run to sound functioning of the international system. you asked a question about the greatest areas for cooperation and limits and the potential cooperation include the economic relationship where there is cooperation to a degree that there is another has evolved and i know we are going to get a chance to talk about this later. serve american interests as perhaps those of china. but nevertheless there are enormous mutual gains to be had in the domain. a second area where again i think we haven't achieved anything that we cut and shut in dealing with the problem of proliferation of what particularly nuclear weapons i

think in the long run it's in china's interest as well as the interest of the united states and virtually everyone else that nuclear weapons in particular are not spread that for a variety of reasons this seems china hasn't always been willing to use the leverage it has to try to prevent certain countries with whom it has some influence from moving down the road to its nuclear capabilities so i would be hopeful that is an area where greater cooperation with the possible to respect the two areas i would highlight i agree on the one of the nonproliferation. i would have a different assessment about the degree of success a thing that we have had fairly important success working with the chinese on the iranian nuclear program. we can go into more detail later which ensure will be asked and the second area would be energy and climate change where the

u.s. and china has a common interest in stable not terribly high prices of energy as consumers and developing alternative sources of energy working together. >> would you like to expand? >> i certainly agree on the issue of energy security at the problem of climate change. i do see some potential obstacles and both of those domains. the climate change is enormously complicated as a developing country doesn't see as being served by the same kind of policies in the united states and the others would seek. nevertheless it's clear something requires cooperation and china and the united states are going to be true of the most if not the most important player in addressing this so we have to try and we will see what kind of results we get. >> fair question to aaron.

the last administration sought to foster some military to military dialogue in exchange. how does your candidate evaluate cooperation today in this realm and what they do to increase a dialogue in strategic mutual confidence? do you think that strategic mutual confidence in the united states and china is an important problem? >> there are two questions. one has to do with military to military dialogue and the other has to do with strategic confidence or as some have referred to it trust or lack of trust. they're both important. military to military dialogue is something that we have had and to pursue with china on and off in various times and sometimes we wanted it more than they want it and it certainly desirable. it's something which has to be

regarded as an area in which the two parties take the opportunity to express their views on issues and a candid way that eliminates and illustrate their thinking and reduce the possibilities for misunderstandings, mistakes and accidents rather than opportunities to attempt to deceive one or the of their war impressed one or the other with capabilities. so let's think it has to be substantive and focused on some critically important issues, for example the question of implications of the collapse might be a subject for dialogue sometimes difficult to talk about so it's worth pursuing. on the issue of strategic confidence there are two it think it's something we have to work that, but i'd think there are some underlining obstacles to building a truly trusting relationship between the united states and china as it is

presently governed because the present regime in china harbors deep suspicion about the intentions of the united states. it believes that the united states seeks to encircle and contain it and keep it down. this, in spite of what might appear to us to be enormous evidence to the contrary if no other country in the world has done more than the united states to assist china's entry into the international system, its economic growth by opening our markets and so on. but there is a deep reservoir of mistrust on the chinese side, and to be fair there is also on the american side. many americans look at the current chinese regime as lacking in transparency, secretive, repressive, and they are not inclined to fully trust. >> we will come back to this topic. >> the obama administration resumed military to military dialogue with the chinese in

2010. there have been the most recently in 2008 after president bush's package to taiwan. the administration proceeded and sold packages in 2010 and yet the chinese agreed to the military to military dialogue. it's very important. i think frankly the chinese may not appreciate and the have not always sensed that. i think if you are a chinese leader to have a military to military dialogue it seems to me in your interest but also if we are the souter and they are not and that isn't as it should be. as for strategic trust, but me finish on one point of the military dialogue.

one of the things we've given the obama administration is the strategic security dialogue which has senior officials on the state department, the defense department and a uniformed military. this has been an inspiration to the u.s. relations for 25 years to get such a dialogue to get military in the room it's so compartmentalized and we set up such a dialogue talking about the issues of nuclear modernization, missile defense to melder space, maritime security, cyber. i think this is very promising. and the point that i would make sense i see the stop sign being held up i am not crazy about the strategic trust. it is a high bar to achieve and

i agree there are other terms that are perhaps more realistic. i prefer terms like strategic predictability or transparency. these are things we can actually achieve to get into a world where there are no surprises we feel we trust each other. >> would you like to respond? >> on the military dialogue a plant to keep in mind is that it can't be an end in itself it has to produce something worthwhile. i agree it has sometimes been the case that the united states seems to be in a position of chasing after china trying to get them into a degree to talk about these and it doesn't seem to me that that is a desirable posture for us i agree china has much to gain from this also as a result of the feeling in the position of relative weakness it leads to a certain sensitivity and perhaps enhances tendencies to conceal and not always to be

straight forward. let me leave it at that >> one of the reasons it is important is because within the chinese system, the chinese military is not subject to the state council without the leadership of the government. it supports to the communist party and ultimately the general secretary. we need a chinese military that is more or worldly understands the perspective of the international community much more than this very silo organization that we have right now. >> was mentioned north korea's no clear weapons programs and its destabilization the last two administrations which you have

both served have sought to address hoping to secure chinese cooperation and of course improvement on the peninsula itself yet during both administrations we have seen the growth in north korea's's nuclear and weapons delivery program including tests. how does your candidate will get the chinese cooperation in this area, and what would your candidate do differently in this entire policy area in the next term? has china bin helpful and i detect in the responses a different assessment of that. >> i think it's a mixed picture. what happened under the obama administration was in 2009 north korea tested a ballistic missile satellite launch and conducted a nuclear test. china works with us of the u.n.

security council to issue a statement and pass the resolution of resulted in the sanctions that north korea has ever faced. granted this is an isolated country but went substantially further than anything that we've ever had before. they basically imposed the arms embargo in and out of north korea and the tough financial sanctions. that was good. after that i think china became nervous about instability in north korea and the possibility that north korea might unravel and they began to stand by and emboldened them in many respects. in 2010 we have a number of provocations by north korea. the unveiling of the darfurian enrichment program and we pushed hard sending the uss george

washington to the yellow sea or the objections to not only north america but china conducting extensive exercises with south korea and the takeover forces from 2012 to 2015. the chinese and president obama called them out publicly on this at the meeting in toronto he referred to the chinese emboldening, indulging of bad behavior by north korea. at the end of the year we saw it began after the north korean provocation they leaned hard to halt provocations and come back to the six-party talks which is the course they seem to be trying to head towards. as it is a mixed picture. the chinese seem to be kind of in the middle not serving too far one way or the other.

i wouldn't regulate it as a complete success but i would rate it as a failure would leave them with them so far. >> on the question of whether china has been helpful on north korea, it's been helpful up to a point and i think it's attitudes have been consistent or its behavior has been consistent over a quite a period of time to read as you said we've wrestled with this problem for many years certainly back to 2002 and even before. the pattern i think has been one in which when pressed by us or persuaded that we might take action that china feared would be damaging to its own interest, beijing has been willing to apply additional increments of pressure to north korea sufficient to persuade them to come back to the negotiating table. but never enough to persuade them to enter into an agreement. it seems china has been trying

to walk the line and the balance on the one hand satisfy an american demand for help in dealing with this issue and on the other, not wanting to press hard enough on how north korea to risk collapsed or to force it into giving up its nuclear programs. i think the chinese regime has no love for north korea. there is a lot of mistrust between the two. however it seems beijing has made a calculation as we prefer to live in a world where north korea didn't have nuclear weapons it is prepared to live with north korea's's nuclear weapons because it has other priorities it rates more highly and in particular the maintenance of a state by its own borders which continues to be dependent on it and more or less favorably disposed. i think the chinese hope has been to persuade the north korean leadership to follow a path somewhat similar to the one that china has followed in the

last 30 or 40 years to begin some kind of marketing economic reform while maintaining tight political control. and i think there is some hope and has been hope the north korean leader can jump on the work can be willing to consider these possibilities it seems to me there isn't much evidence to support that help. >> thank you. would you like a rebuttal? >> just two points. the deputy secretary of state and i visited beijing in june of 2009 when the north koreans or in the cycle of particularly aggressive misbehavior and we warned them that if they -- if north korea could on its current course and would result in responses by the united states, japan and south korea including the military area china would find discomforting. we spelled it out in a little

more detail than that. some of these things have come to pass. you will see for example south korea on extending its missile guidelines and of course the u.s. deployment to the exercises, so this is a way of reinforcing when they hear from us there could be consequences they tend to lean more and that's what we've done. the only other point i would make is what we would do on the second term. the obama administration wouldn't be afraid of direct talks with north korea but leading to the six party they would have to achieve the objectives and be precondition and the moratorium. >> on that point i think there are ways in which the united

states and other countries could bring additional pressure to bear on north korea. some of them have been attempted in the first part of the bush administration and i think they have to be on the table particularly if we are going to have any chance of having successful negotiations to read the lesson of dealing with north korea i think is the you don't get anywhere without pressure. you may not get anywhere even with it but on that list i would include financial sanctions, tight financial sanctions, the north korean regime is in many respects a criminal organization that fuels with the result of jug drug seals, counterfeiting arm sales, and there are ways of into interdicting the flow of dollars because that's the way they need hard currency but would take cooperation from china. we've got that in the past. we also have in place something called a proliferation security initiative under which countries

could stop and search ships that were thought to be carrying materials related to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and that has been used in the past and in one case stopping the vessels carrying heroin and was also used to stop a ship carrying nuclear materials to libya. it is possible. there are ways in which more pressure could be applied. i think if there are going to be results from the negotiations it is going to have to be as a result of an increasing pressure. >> thank you. >> aaron, and various large rocks and poles in the south and east china sea is has had periodic incidents as of a diplomatic skirmishes over conflicting claims. claims about which washington takes no position as to sovereignty. how was your candidate define american interests in these disputes and is your candidate concerned that these disputes

could threaten american interests? can the u.s. play an even-handed role when one party to conflict is sometimes the u.s. ally to which we have security commitments >> i think the current position of the united states government, and it's one that has been sustained over the previous administrations and i would suspect it to be sustained over all and the romney administration is that on most of these issues their conflicting claims the united states takes no position as to the resolution although we do insist or hope resolution will be achieved through peaceful means. there are small but important exceptions isn't an exception to that principle but the question of its inclusion in the u.s.-japan treaty defense treaty the u.s. interests are i think

deeply engaged by these disputes and potential conflicts i think they are heating up for a variety of reasons. nationalism i think plays a huge role in china and also energy. it's driving a lot of this as a desire to exploit energy reserves ever fought to lie under these pieces of rock which are not in and of themselves of great importance. whether these disputes could threaten american interests i think the answer is undoubtably yes. but i would say there are two dangers. there is one possibility that the united states could be drawn into a conflict that wouldn't serve our interests if one of the parties was an american ally. on the other hand there's a danger also of weakening our alliance by appearing to be reluctant to stand behind our

allies. while we maintain this position on neutrality about the resolution of sovereignty, i think it's very important and we make it clear that in the end our alliances are stand for most of importance to us. one other thing i would say just briefly is there are ways of resolving and dealing with some of these disputes not so much the sovereignty parts because it is hard to divide it right down the middle of the development of resources could certainly be done on a cooperative basis with mutual contributions by a variety of countries so far at least the chinese haven't seemed interested in that and they maintain the position that most of the resources and features in particular belong to them to the speed they made an important statement in hanoi in july of

2010 highlighting the u.s. principles governing the south china seas. >> any senior official speaking out and outlining our policy in that robust fashion. she laid out the key principles including adherence to the u.n. convention and all claims that it had to be based on legitimate land-based claims. the importance of the freedom of commerce and the importance of peaceful resolution of claims and the importance of negotiation of the code of conduct. the point secretary clinton was making is that we need an approach of principle rather than approach of taking sides. we do have allies and countries we cannot wish to see bullied and if these principles are followed that will be the

outcome a steady policy in which we don't take sides but we assert these principles very vigorously and forcefully i think it would be good if the u.s. ratified the u.n. conventional law of the sea. all former secretaries of state have proposed that to read the business community strongly supports it and the u.s. navy strongly supports it. governor romney's's position as best i can tell is the obscure and he's been critical and there are now 34 votes on the republicans in the u.s. senate against it. so there is a difference between the candidates. to last planes. the chinese need to clarify the so-called line. as you know this is a dotted line that china has drawn around the south china sea claiming not only of the recent out false but apparently the water as well.

there's ambiguity in the claim they need to clarify it and make it clear that there is no more. this is completely contrary to the international law and the last point i would make is the we that china handles the south china sea is an important test of china's's rise. is it going to be peaceful or is it going to be coercive? china is not lewd noticed chris mccarron. >> aaron? >> i don't think governor romney has taken a formal position and i'm not going to make policy here by. i think there is an underlining, here and it's one that jeff referred to. i believe that the motives which is driving the recent cycle of tensions over these is the

growth of chinese power they've made these claims for a long time in the formation of before. the capacity other than to try to enforce them and i agree this is a test how china is going to rise. thus far china's the tater hasn't been reassuring. it's to use coercion and put pressure on countries that have disputed -- claims that are in dispute with its own and we will see. that hasn't served its interest well. it's on the part of many countries in the region. i think it is absolutely critical that the united states play a role in this partly caused because the interest among other things in the freedom of navigation but also because if we don't, no one of the other countries in the

region and not even all of them together will have sufficient strength to stand up to china. and i think china's preference for dealing bilaterally with each of the various disputants in these claims is a reflection of the belief not inaccurate that its superior power in that situation will allow it eventually to get what it wants. >> jeff? >> two additional points. i think there were mistakes made on both sides by the japanese and the chinese. it forced the japanese government to do things that they didn't want to do. and resulted in a misleading of the chinese reactions. the chinese reacted in a way for the party to unleash or tolerate mob that attack japanese cars,

japanese stores. it's horrible to the investors and a signal to the region generally about the character, the chinese nationalism could have in the years to come. the main point i would make is on the question of energy. i think it is a murky question the degree to which that is driving the players. if you look at energy prices and the ball now, natural gas prices have been limited. technologies particularly explored by the u.s. and a major international oil company is going to find its global gas in the south china sea that can compete with what we are getting out of the ground in pennsylvania or north dakota is frankly highly unrealistic. they will servant of these claims they are not going to get much out.

>> question number 62 jeff. the taiwan strait relations are probably better than in many years. part of the reason being growing across the street cultural and economic relations. the issue of upgraded more advanced jet fighter sales have periodically been raised. how does your candidate will get the issue of weapons sales to taiwan in general and then the current setting of cooperative cross trade relations? >> the obama administration has put a great deal of emphasis on building a strong relationship with the leadership in taiwan. we made clear before we came into office that we looked for president mao to proceed with

different policies than his predecessor had which aaron and his counterparts had to suffer with. in some cases your good on policy and other cases you are lucky to really think that we were lucky having a president committed to the relationship but i think we have also handled the relationship very well in terms of giving a arms sale of close to 12 to $13 billion in less than four years i think is probably the largest amount the administration has an agreement on taiwan nationals to the united states and getting access to the market recently. as for where to go on the question revolves around the f-16. the obama administration made a decision to provide upgraded

f-16 fighter aircraft to taiwan. this was a decision the bush administration declined and had been confronted by a request from taiwan for such fighters and in 2008 it deferred. we went ahead with it and as for more advanced, that's a decision that hasn't been made. it remains open. our decision was made not only on the concurrent sale but also the recommendation of the defense department and we will be guided by the views of the trend chief of staff and the defense department on this matter. >> aaron? >> as jeff suggested the obama administration followed through on commitments that were initially made under the bush administration to make arms sales giving back to 2001 and

that is certainly appropriate. the united states has a solemn commitment under the taiwan relations act to provide assistance to taiwan and administration's success they've done that over the years and will continue to do that until the taiwan issue is resolved. taiwan faces growing challenges and its ability to defend itself given the substantial sustained on going buildup of china's military capabilities directed at. china did place something like 1200 short-range ballistic missiles targeted on taiwan and its developed large numbers of new generation aircraft which are equivalent to were superior to many of those taiwan presently deploys and its buildup continues and taiwan is going to face a growing military challenge.

governor rummy specifically supported the sale of the next generation f-16 because that is with the taiwanese request. i think a plant that is worth mentioning and i agree with jeff sometimes you're good and sometimes you're lucky. i think the way that the taiwanese domestic policies have played out so far have laid out in a smoothing relationship between the mainland but i don't think there's a guarantee that is going to continue to be the case. taiwan as a democracy. there are many people with different views. in taiwan i don't think there are many people there that supports independence but there are some who would support policies that were different than those that are currently being pursued and in the long run, china is not going to be able to get what it wants from taiwan by deepening the economic relations and increasing military pressure or it's not going to be able to get it

peacefully so there is a reason to be concerned in a somewhat longer term about what is going to play out but for the time being, certainly the trend has been towards stability. >> two points. one, we should appreciate the hu jintao has done in relations to be filled a constructive relationship and they've stabilized it. we've got enough problems in the world without having problems in the taiwan strait to resume this -- this is the one area the u.s. and china have the behavior of the two sides and essentially of taken off the table for the foreseeable future. the other point in terms of future arms sales, it's important that we provide taiwan the means to deter but the

faults that taiwan can't compete in an arms race with its rapidly growing military budget i think is an illusion that the united states should not have and people in taiwan do not have either. >> i agree. i don't think anyone that studies the problem believes that this point taiwan has the capacity or is going to have the capacity to defend itself on its own from china it needs to be able to be strong enough to resist the chinese attack to make itself a difficult target, and ultimately it is going to have to hope this peaceful resolution can count if it meets on the support of the united states the position of the u.s. is we don't have a stand on how ultimately the question is resolved but we insist that it

would be resolved peacefully. the people of taiwan reach whatever decision they make in a way that is not coerced and is granted be the policy. it may become more difficult over time to sustain that situation as china's cao work continues to grow and that is something we have to be concerned about and one of the reasons why there's been more discussion recently of u.s. strengthening of u.s. military posture in the region. >> thank you bouck and now my colleague benjamin wu mollusca questions in a different domain. >> thank you for moderating the questions related to foreign policy, defense and security. gentlemen, we are going to begin the second set of questions to trade and human rights. i'm going to mix this up a little bit and ask questions directly to each of you and the response format would remain the

same. dr. friedberg, and when to begin with you. dr. bader referenced this issue and one of his previous responses to the governor romney stated this threat in the course of the campaign he intends to label china as a manipulator on day one of the presidency but marco rubio most recently agree with the governor about china initiating a trade war that could ultimately hurt american business. does governor romney share those fears about the trade war? >> you have to stand back a little bit from this and see it in a wider context. the president said the other night u.s. exports to china have increased and that's true that imports have increased as much if not more. we continue to run very large trade deficits with china. lester and the deficit was five times as much as the deficit with japan. this isn't entirely the result

the free play of market force. china continues to pursue a range of policies, practices that unfairly advantage chinese firms and economic entities of the expense of others including those in the united states by depressing the value of its currency and giving export subsidies of the various kinds of by imposing barriers to imports from other countries including the united states by appropriating intellectual properties and policies of indigenous innovation which basically extorts facilities in china and theft and cyber that. the international trade commission estimated a year ago that proper protection of intellectual property rights in china could result in an increase of as many as 2 million jobs in the united states. i'm not an economist. i don't know if that is a realistic calculation of the commission is not a political

group. labeling china a currency manipulator wouldn't trigger armageddon. it would put china on notice and would begin a process of discussion and ultimately negotiation between the united states and china, and if necessary would be followed by the imposition of countervailing duties on some products on a sliding scale so it isn't a big red button that is going to be pushed. on the question of the trade war, that is a serious concern but we cannot allow ourselves to be paralyzed by. as governor romney said the other night, in this sense we are already in the trade war, but china is pursuing a much more coherent and deliberate strategy at this point than we are. he also made the point that china is at least and indeed in certain respects more dependent on the united states than we are on them. so we need to find ways of exerting leverage not to impose

partisanship on china but to create an economic relationship with the equally beneficial to both parties. >> dr. speed you already suggested january 20, 2013, the number one of the wrong the administration would be disruptive to the u.s.-china relationship. do you care to elaborate cracks >> aaron talked about a number of trade issues and i hope that we will get to those as well the bible just focus on the currency question. secretary paulson and geithner have had the upper kennedy to label china currency the balance of trade much more egregious and its undervaluation of its currency they chose not to do so. they chose instead to use pressure and diplomacy and collectively they have achieved approximately 830% rise in the value since it began moving a

few years ago. the currency manipulation designation is in the tool kit of the secretary treasury. the threat to use it is important and useful but the idea of doing it on the first day in office i find frankly astonishing. this is before president romney will have met with any chinese leaders. there will be new views by the way. they will not be in a passive or submissive mood to threats and being back into corners. the chinese will retaliate this i can guarantee. they do not take these things quietly. this will prejudice relations from day one. this is not an unknown excrement. in 1980 ronald reagan made

threats about the relationship with regards to taiwan and he ended up in a two-year negotiation to august 17th to communicate which i do not regard as one of the highlights of the history. and candidate bill clinton made a mistake in 1992 of committing to an executive status. this is a huge mistake to make a specific threat that president romney would have to carry out the consequences or have to back away from the consequences to his credibility of home and abroad. the other point i would make on this is there has been a deafening silence from other senior republicans statesman who been involved in this relationship for the last generation on the subject. i am not aware. perhaps someone is of whether there of an endorsement of this

by henry kissinger or carla or brent scowcroft or hank paulson or bob zoellick or richard r. medish, some of the big names, the key figures in the u.s.-china relations in the last generation. >> dr. friedberg? >> yes, it's true that the value of the chinese currency has appreciated over time. however, the treasury department in its most recent report said that it continues to be significantly overvalued. it's true that past presidents and treasury secretaries have foregone the opportunity to use this designation. president obama said at one point he didn't want to embarrass china's leaders and that seems to be not a sufficient reason for the mishitting policy in the interest of americans. but again i would emphasize that the currency issued as part of a much bigger problem that involves and a ray of policies

china is pursuing and has been pursuing over time to which is systematic response is necessary and is a part of it and thus begins a process that leads to the formulation and execution of the estrogen that produces better results for the united states and this seems to me eminently sensible to do to respond to the currency is undervalued. people pressure. the chinese trade surplus is only down 2% of gdp as opposed to 10% five years ago so that progress but it's not where it should be in second, governor romney said the other day that if the negotiations didn't produce a result he would impose tariffs and aaron refer to those. it doesn't provide any new authority for the century of treasury.

by the way secretary of treasury does not provide any new authority for the secretary treasury to impose the tariffs it would have to go through the congress to seek out. >> dr. bader come in monday's presidential debate in florida with president obama and governor mitt romney referred to china's's economic and trade behavior as unfair in fundamental ways. what specifically with the administration do if given another four years to address the inequities and what leverage with the president have but he didn't have in the first term? >> aaron outlined a lot of problems in the system producing the unbalances we are facing and i think our analysis on this one probably be fairly similar. the -- it is not a level playing field. china is pursuing industrial policy which favors certain

sectors and certain companies. the state-owned enterprises operate with unfair advantage in the chinese system. they get subsidies on land and taxes. they get loans from the state-owned banks they don't necessarily repaid and the result is massive over investments and an investment driven economy that produces less goods and the chinese have to figure out what to do with these goods and so they sell them abroad. frequently at accessible low-price is. the chinese have to move away from this investment driven model to rid of the problems in ip are transfer for the companies that seek to invest in china. what is the solution? there are a number of steps that president obama has taken. number one, the cases before the world trade organization.

we brought i believe eight cases in the world trade organization in four years they brought during his two terms. number two, aggressive. areas like ip -- ipr, solar energy, automobile exports, a whole range of issues. number two, trade remedies, the use of special safeguards. president obama invoked the special safeguard provision on the u.s. law which we are entitled to under the wto to raise the tariffs on chinese tires in the u.s. market. the last to the point just briefly in a second term there would be more leverage because the economy is and be stronger

and most economists the looking at the economic situation they are encountering some bumps so that is going to give us some leverage. >> dr. friedberg how would governor mitt romney forecast and obama second term on these issues? >> i know what he would say about the last four years. i think jeff and i agree it has been deleted and half-hearted. governor romney said in the debate the other night that the administration's response to the problems with china has been too little, too late and ford on these opportunities to use additional pressure on the currency issues and the administration created an interagency trade enforcement center earlier this year and didn't fill the position of all the spring it's brought a series of cases to the world trade

organization i believe that the majority of them have been brought in the last 18 months or so and a number of them have notably the next and ohio and rightly or not this creates the impression that the administration is playing politics and what everyone thinks of politics i think it sends a signal to our counterparts in china that we are not really serious about this. ..

>> and in particular something that the current administration has not done with great vigor, again, until fairly recently, initiating a trade policy that seeks to expand our trade with other countries by entering into free trade agreements with countries that play by the rules. >> doctor, an opportunity for rebuttal. >> just briefly. number one, the obama administration has closed on a number of free trade agreements including on korea, colombia and panama. number two, um, whether what we've done in the last four years is sufficient to this massive challenge is something one can debate, but there's no debate about we did a lot, and the previous administration did not. um, i think one other element in this that we should think about is how to reinforce chinese reforms. chinese economists understand what they have to do to reform

their economy and to continue growth. there's a great report by the world bank, the feldman research center, of outlining a program that i think aaron and i would agree on that the chinese need to undertake. we'll get into, i'm sure, discussion on the next leadership. they know it. whether they can do it is another matter. but we should find ways of reinforcing their determination to take these steps just as we did when we were negotiating the world trade organization agreement. >> dr. friedberg, 30 seconds for this. >> pass. >> okay. well, then you get the next question. and it deals with foreign direct investment. dr. friedberg, fdi and the united states is thought to have the potential for creating and expanding american jobs. would governor romney agree, and what role would he see for chinese foreign direct investment, especially in the energy and technology sectors? and does governor romney think

that the current mechanism to oversee fdi in the united states are too restrictive, not restrictive enough or just right? >> first, i think governor romney holds the view that the united states should welcome foreign direct investment including from china, especially in many sectors that create jobs in the united states. we certainly should be open to investment. we seek to invest around the world, and we welcome investment in the united states. but we do need to recognize that some sectors and some investors are different than others, and we have procedures in place and have had for some time for reviewing proposed foreign investments that could pose threats to national security, so-called investment in the united states, and governor romney supports the cfius process. china, it should be noted, poses special challenges in this area, and it's not just to the united states. australia, britain, among others, have had to deal with

this. the line between business and state and/or party when dealing with chinese companies is often blurry. china is not an enemy of the united states, but it is seeking to develop military systems that could be targeted against the forces of the united states and its allies, and for that purpose it seeks to acquire technologies that would enable it to improve the capabilities of its own weapon systems. so we have a special security or problem with china. moreover, china's firms and the chinese government are also engaged in extensive violations of intellectual property rights including through cyber espionage. and there's cause for concern that some acquisitions that chinese companies might seek to undertake in the united states would have national security and/or commercial implications. and the house intelligence committee released a report last week, an examination of two chinese companies that resulted

in a recommendation that american firms be discouraged from entering into cooperation with these companies that seek to sell telecommunications equipment in the united states because of the belief that there were major national security threats and also threats to intellectual property. >> dr. bader? >> the cfius process, as aaron mentioned, is an important way of insuring that chinese investments do not go into areas that would be threatening or damaging to u.s. national security. cfius is not supposed to consider economic, is not supposed to act as a judge of economic issues, it's supposed to act as judge of security issues. there have been a number of cfius decisions in the last two years relating, for example, to investment by huawei and recently one in a wind farm near a sensitive u.s. facility where

cfius has not approved chinese investments. but i agree that chinese investments in the united states is a good thing. it's positive. we should seek it. in the last year, the amount of chinese investment in the u.s. is something like six or seven billion dollars which is a magnitude more than that in history of u.s./china relations. chinese companies are beginning to go out, and they're looking at the u.s. as an opportunity. um, some of these, the notable investments including cnnoc which had been blocked from investment in purchasing a hostile bid seven years ago but now has purchased minority shares in shale gas and shale oil in the southwest. vice president biden, when he visited china last year, made the strongest statement i can recall seeing by a senior

american official about the u.s. welcoming chinese investment. it creates jobs, and so long as the cfius process does its job, it's something that we should be positive about. um, also one other thing that the obama administration has been looking at is giving greater energy to the negotiations on the bilateral treaty. that's been on and off for about two decades. perhaps the chinese will have more interest in reaching a sound agreement now that they are an investor. >> dr. friedberg, would you care to rebut? >> just a couple of remarks. i agree on the importance of investment in the united states as well as from other countries. there are, obviously, large sectors of our economy where chinese investment would be welcome and pose no problems or challenges whatsoever. i think the biggest investment last year was the procurement or

purchase of the amc movie chain. no one thinks that poses a threat to the security chain, although some of the movies might. la of finish. [laughter] but, again, there are sufficient problems we face including concerns about the supply chain through which parking lots, components -- parts, components are produced and integrated into military systems and communication systems. this is a serious concern because a potential enemy of the united states could, if it were able to gain access to that supply chain, implant in defense systems and other devices that could be used to monitor secure communications, to interfere with the conduct of military operations, to disrupt the functioning of our civilian infrastructure. so there are serious, new problems here that have to be addressed. and there are two dangers always. there are dangers of going too far in either direction.

on the one hand, of appearing to be unwelcoming to chinese investment in a way that would be interpreted as being hostile, and on the other hand not being careful enough about investments that could threaten our national security. >> 30 seconds. >> just briefly. the acquisition of amc theaters, i agree, does not threaten u.s. national security. but even in that case it's interesting, there are unusual discussions that go on with chinese companies. in this case, for example, to insure that the american management remains in place and that the chinese propaganda department would not have control or influence over the films that amc would be, films would be, cinemas would be showing. and as aaron alluded, companies like huawei and zte do provide special challenges, um, because

of the possibility of impact on our telecommunications infrastructure risk factors. this is something that needs more study before we can think about opening that spigot too wide. >> dr. bader, i'm going to direct the fourth question to you, and we've touched upon these issues already, but they're important, so i wanted to delve into them with a bit more time. with 70 president of the world's -- 70% of the world's intellectual property, ipr loss is exceeding $250 billion per year due to piracy and cyber espionage. both candidates expect both countries to live up to their treaty-based obligations. how does president obama see china as an actor in the ipr and cyber espionage, and what future cooperative or unilateral measures would he take to address this issue?

>> well, china is, frankly, a problematic actor in both areas. um, in ipr the last numbers i saw something of the order of 80% of all seizures of counterfeited goods but u.s. customs authorities are chinese origin. this is a problem that administrations have wrestled with. i remember the first agreement i can recall is around 1995 negotiated on the subject. it's been a massive problem, frankly, with every rising asian country over the last 40 years. other countries, japan, southeast asia, korea, taiwan have addressed it. they've taken time. usually an important factor in it is when their companies become serious overseas actors with innovative products of their own, and then they take ipr more seriously. china has not yet reached that stage because they're mostly still in the area of assembly

rather than branding of their, of their products. um, similarly on cyber espionage, the threat is on multiple levels. in my mind the most serious threat is to u.s. corporate intellectual property. we've seen massive takes, you'll remember the attack on google and about 32 other companies that was uncovered at the that google made its announcement. this is a hard issue. it's not a purely bilateral issue, it's a multilateral issue. china and the u.s., well, let's say china is not the only country in the world with cyber espionage capabilities. there are a number of other countries. and, um, we need kind of a multilateral process for dealing with it. i alluded earlier to the special dialogue we've created, the strategic security dialogue in which we talk about cyber issues

with not only top chinese civilian, but chinese military as well since there's great reason to believe that the chinese military has been involved in this. the obama administration would be prepared to take unilateral measures, and i'd just allude to cfius. when cfius reviews investments in the u.s., one of the categories they are entitled to look at is ipr, the ipr record and the cyber record of the company that's applying. so that's something that can be used. >> dr. friedberg? >> i agree that this problem of theft and intellectual property is not a new one. we've dealt with it before with other developing countries, but i think in the case of china, it is a problem of a different order of magnitude than any that we've faced in the past. the size and the scale of china's efforts to extract technology, to steal technology to put it bluntly, the opportunities that they have to do that in part because of the desire of advanced industrial

countries' firms wishing to invest in china and having to, as i mentioned earlier, sometimes hand over intellectual property in order to have the right to do that and, in addition, the fact that as near. [applause] awe can determine -- as nearly as we can determine some, if not all of this activity has a degree of state support and reflects an underlying strategy on the part of the chinese government that seeks to use various means including cyber espionage to gain access to technology and information that will increase china's commercial power but also its military power. as jeff mentioned, the necessity of raising this at the highest levels, that's admirable. much of the cyber theft appears to originate from sites in china, and that means that the chinese government is either not adequately enforcing its own laws and dealing with those within its borders who are violating them to the extent

that they apply to those kinds of activities, or that it's complicit in efforts on the part of various actors to engage in this kind of activity. so we should seek dialogue, we should seek cooperative measures where possible. but i think this is another area where we have to ask ourselves where the leverage lies. as of right now, we don't seem to have a great deal, and we don't seem to be dealing very successfully with this problem. jeff mentioned the fact that this is not a bilateral problem, it's a multilateral problem, and i think that's a very important observation because it suggests something that perhaps we can do more than we have thus far. we share an interest with all of the other advanced industrial nations in dealing with this problem. and, in fact, government leaders in many some european countries were earlier and more outspoken in talking about the challenge posed by chinese cyber espionage than our own leaders have been. so there are possibilities for

cooperation with other countries in addressing this issue that i think we need to pursue, we need to find ways, well, of course, to reason, but if necessary, to apply pressure to china to compel it to take greater steps to deal with this problem that originates largely from within its own borders. >> dr. bader, you have a chance to rebut. >> just briefly. the chinese problem is both the ipr and the cyber espionage area is massive. i was in no way minimizing it, i was suggesting a historic precedence for the direction in which a solution might lie. one of the things that we did in the obama administration was we reached an agreement with the chinese that not only would software in ministries but also for the first time software used by state-owned enterprises would have to be legitimate, not pirated. and the chinese committed to

funding, to providing funding for the replacement of pirated software in those enterprises. one can always say what is happening isn't enough. what is happening is never enough. this is just a problem of enormous magnitude. but we just have to try to chip away at it. >> 30 seconds for final comment? >> i agree with that. one of the proposals that governor romney has made is collective of countries, and there are not a huge number at the highest levels in the key technologies that face this problem threatening to refuse to export or to transfer technology in some sectors where china has been using these illicit techniques to gain access. as a way of getting unified leverage and cooperation on the part of the countries that have been the victims of this activity. again, just talking with the chinese government is not sufficient. just waiting for them to reach a level of development where it no longer serves their interest is

not sufficient. we need to find ways of pressing them now in order to deal with this problem. >> dr. friedberg, the penultimate question in this set of questions will be directed at you. if he wins november's election, how would a president romney propose to balance economic security and human rights in his administration's foreign policy? where does governor romney think the greatest opportunity to advance human rights in china lies? would he envision a role in promoting the expansion of press and cyber freedoms in the china? >> i think it's useful to step back from this just for a moment. a belief in the universality of certain values is essential to who we are as a country, and these are not american values, but universal values. the dignity of the individual, individual freedom, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, this is something that americans have always believed in, and that belief has always had a role to play in our

foreign policy. china has made enormous progress in many respects. its society is more developed, its people are more well off in certain respects, they have more freedom to move about, to have the jobs that they choose, but it is still governed by a regime that doesn't adequately respect or protect these rights. no outside force can or should try to impose on china. china is going to have to change from within. but first and foremost, we have to be willing to speak up on behalf of those who are brave enough in the chinese system themselves to be critical of their government and to oppose policies that are in many cases repressive. so what is it that we can do? one, to speak out. we need to do that consistently. governor romney feels that the current administration has not

always done that. find ways to encourage the growth of groups in civil society, some of which have -- most of which have nothing to do with politics, groups that campaign against corruption, that campaign on behalf of women's rights, legal reforms and so on to find ways of encouraging in some cases nongovernmental actors and private actors that seek to support that activity. and governor romney has also suggested a, an expansion and strengthening of an initiative that was begun by secretary clinton, the so-called internet freedom initiative which has developed a variety of technologies and techniques that are made available not only to people in china, but anywhere in the world where regimes are oppressive and seek to restrict access to the internet or the ability of citizens to use advanced means of communication to both communicate with the outside world and with one

another. that seems an extremely important and useful thing to do, and we would support doing more of it. >> dr. bader, how does president obama balance economic security and human rights in his administration? >> well, barack obama and hillaryfá clinton are, as identified with beneficiaryies of u.s. protection of human rights and the democratic system. they are the embodiments of it throughout the world. they are both seen that way. when president obama visited china in 2009, he addressed a town hall meeting in shanghai, and he spoke about american values, spoke about democracy and human rights. um, his presentation was streamed by a chinese internet

company. i checked the next day, there were 55 million hits. now, this was not a perfect event. this was in the -- this wasn't in the united kingdom. that's why we did it. because it was in china, and we wanted to penetrate. when you get 55 million hits, that is a way of pen triting the society. president obama was, i think, maybe one of two or three heads of government, heads of state in the world to make statements about welcoming the nobel peace prize committee's decision to award the prize. he's met with the dalai lama a few times, always raises human rights and tibet issues in meetings with chinese leaders. aaron mentioned that governor romney believes in speaking out on human rights. one case where we saw governor romney speaking out on human rights was on the cheng wan

cheng affair, and i think that's a good example of the obama administration's commitment to human rights where our embassy allowed in a prominent dissident, protected him, gave him sanctuary for a few days while negotiating or not negotiating depending on whether you talk to the chinese or the american side, an agreement for him to stay in this country freely. and then he changed his mind once he came out, and the agreement was renegotiated. this was a pretty bold thing to do, to let him in and then to negotiate him out. in the middle of this, governor romney issued a statement denouncing the obama administration and secretary clinton for throwing him out of the embassy, for forcing him to leave and called it a tragic day for the united states. um, that was irresponsible, it was factually wrong in that he wasn't thrown out.

he went because he wanted to, then he changed his mind. and it was a really clumsy intervention in a very sensitive diplomatic process where a life was at stake. >> would you care to rebut? >> yes. [laughter] since we're quoting, i think there have been a number of instances when high officials in the current administration have made statements which rightly or wrongly have appeared to be overly accepting of chinese practices in regards to human rights. when secretary of state clinton made her first visit to beijing in 2009, she said publicly that our pressing on those issues -- referring to how many rights issues -- can't interfere with the global economic crisis and the security crisis. whatever it was that she meant, the headlines around the world that followed from that was the obama administration is has

downgraded human rights. that may not have been true, but that was the signal that was sent. the president did ultimately meet with the dalai lama, but he didn't meet with him initially in 2009. the first president not to welcome him since 1991. he did eventually meet with him. vice president biden in 2011 said in front of a chinese audience your policy has been one which i fully understand. i'm not second guessing the one-child policy. and that is a policy that has had barbaric consequences which, among other things, cheng wan cheng was seeking to protect chinese women against. so words are important, and it's important for our leaders to be consistent and strong on this issue. >> dr. bader, 30 seconds on this question. >> well, secretary clinton's statement was, i think, a fair

distillation of the policy of every administration for the last 40 years. she was perhaps indices crete in saying so -- indices secret in saying so, but there was nothing new in what she was saying. after all, richard nixon accomplished relations with mao tse-tung who was one of the worst human rights violaters in the country, and we did so in order to cooperate precisely on strategic issues. you can walk and chew gum at the same time. we can press human rights issues and also work on strategic issue. as for the one-child policy and vice president biden's comment, i read an op-ed by governor romney some time ago about china which, i would say, about 99% on the threats china posed, it was unbalanced. but the only specific area i

remember on human rights that he emphasized was the one-child program which struck me as a curious particular violation to single out among the many problems in chinese human rights. perhaps reflecting a political agenda? >> dr. bader, you get my final question. a few days after our presidential election here in the united states, china will be transitioning to a new leadership, a new generation of leaders who will guide china probably through the next decade. if given a second term, how does president obama see the opportunities in this transition, and what measures would the president propose to take to begin this new heads of state relationship? >> well, president obama reached out to hu jintao when, right after president obama was elected and right after he took office. he's met with hu jintao more than any previous president.

they've met, has met with a counterpart. they've met something upwards of a dozen times. many phone calls. i'm sure that this pattern will continue with the next chinese leadership. the chinese haven't, um, done us the favor yet of telling us who will be in the new leadership. that will be announced on november 8th. i think we are all confident that the general secretary of the communist party will be xi jingping. i think the important thing here is that china needs to resume the path of aggressive reform in the economic and political area. i think xi jingping is a very, very smart man who understands what china needs to do.

there is a real linkage between economic and political reform in china. these are not unrelated. again, going back to this world bank report i mentioned, one of the key recommendations in it is about rule of law and how important that is to economic development in china. well, that is also historically the first step that most countries in asia have undertaken as they've been embarking on a path towards democracy. the question is whether xi jingping and the new standing committee will choose to take the aggressive stance that needs to be taken on economic and political reform or whether they will take a muddle-through process. because it's very dangerous and difficult to challenge the system in china because there are so many stakeholders, what i would call irresponsible stakeholders at the local level who men -- benefit from current arrangements that the leadership

would have to be taking on. so i think that taking on some elements of of the economic reform program are much more likely than the political reform area. um, i think, though, that ultimately the chinese are going to have to do both, and we need to encourage them to do both. >> dr. friedberg. >> there are a wide array of issues that the new chinese leadership will have to address, and in particular jeff mentioned the importance of economic reforms, and i think it is the case that many people in china including people at the high levels of the chinese system recognize that the current economic model, the one that china has been following for the last 20 or 30 years, is not sustainable, that it emphasizes investment over domestic consumption, that it emphasizes exports and that it has produced and is beginning to produce systematic distortions in many

china's economy which may set it up for future crises, and that those could happen perhaps sooner rather than later. but the recognition of those problems and the solution of them is an entirely different matter, and the reason why the solutions are so difficult is because the current political system is set up in a way that allows participants in it at various levels to profit from an economic model which is producing over time an unbalanced economy. local officials can be paid off by contractors for contracts that build roads, apartment buildings and so on. they may expropriate lands from farmers and turn it over to people who want to use it for economic development and get paid off along the way. and that points to a problem which i think is one that significant and needs to be kept in mind, and that is that

corruption in the chinese system is endemic. and as we realize, as we saw illustrated, it penetrates to the highest levels of the chinese government. political reform is an entirely different question. it is not something, at least not in the ways that we would recognize it, that is on the table for discussion in china. people talk about democracy and the importance of increasing avenues for people to express their views, but when you look closely at what they're proposing, it's democracy within the party, some competition among small numbers for political office. it's not something that we would recognize as genuine political reform. so i think we need to be helpful and open, but we also need to be realistic. i remember when hu jintao came into power, there were many people who believed that he would be the chinese gorbachev and people just wait and see.

wait until he gets in, he's going to be a reformer, and that really has not turned out to be the case. i hope, and i'm beginning to hear some of those same kinds of predictions about the new leadership. i hope they're true, but i think we have to be skeptical and reserve judgment. >> dr. bader, an opportunity for rebuttal, if you wish. >> um, just briefly. number one, i think if xi jingping does, in fact, undertake some of these difficult reform decisions, we have a real stake in his success. and we should do whatever we can to encourage that. um, i just want to say something about the tate of human rights -- the state of human rights generally in china just briefly. clearly, highly deficient, nothing that we would recognize as a democratic or participatory system. but i first visited china in

1981, and the difference between china in 1981 and today not merely in terms of economic prosperity, but in terms of the options and, i would even say, freedoms that ordinary people have in their daily lives in terms of access to information, in terms of speech of certain categories, in terms of ability to get a job, in terms of ability to travel, um, is light years away from the china that i first visited. so i think that tells us that progress is possible in china. um, we're going to need to be patient. it's going to have to be their decision, not our decision how fast they move and how far they go. >> dr. friedberg, 30 seconds and last word? >> i agree with that. i think we have to hope for the best, but i think we also have to prepare for some possibilities which are maybe not so pretty and difficult to deal with which might include a regime that is increasingly

reliant on the kinds of assertive or even aggressive nationalism that we've seen expressed in protests against japanese companies and japanese citizens in china. that is increasingly militaristic in its attitudes and behavior. i don't predict these things, i certainly hope that they don't come to pass, but we have to hold open in our minds the possibility that history doesn't simply move in one direction and doesn't only move in the direction that we would prefer. that, to me, is in part the lesson of the last 20 or 30 years. you go back to the immediate post-cold war period. there were many people who predicted and expected rapid movement in china towards political liberalization. and the lesson, i think, of this last two decades has been thus far the chinese communist party has been resilient, it's been tough, it's been smart or, it's been brutal. and it has managed to maintain its grip on power. i don't think that it will be able to do so indefinitely, but i wouldn't want to place bets on

exactly when the day will come when it passes from the scene. and we're going to have to deal with whatever emerges in china. we hope that it'll be reform, but we have to be prepared for the possibility that it may not be. >> thank you, gentlemen. we've come to the conclusion of the second set of questions. we'll begin the third set of questions which will be -- [inaudible] by angie tang who has accumlated the questions from the audience as well as a live viewing audience via social media. >> again, i want to thank all of you for -- speakers, moderators, for getting us, guiding us into this spirited and robust exchange, and we have an overwhelming amount of questions. and we have only about 15 minutes to go through it all. so we've done our best to select questions that have not been previously asked and also to insure a diversity of topics to both of our speakers.

the first question comes from our online viewer, a familiar name from the university in the shanghai. he's 12 hours ahead of us and watching us right now. the topic is on energy security. while competition of energy would lead to distrust and rivalry, how would your candidate envision china and the expanding their cooperation on global energy security? for both. dr. bader, you can go first. >> okayment well, it's very good to hear from our good friend, professor shun, and glad to hear that he's awake at this ungodly hour listening to aaron and me. [laughter] i, frankly, think that this is an area of important potential cooperation, not an area that should lead to conflict. um, we need as many sources of energy as we can find.

the notion a few years ago that some were propounding that china by investing in this or that country was somehow locking up sources of oil represented a misunderstanding of the nature of international energy markets. um, frankly, the more the better. it's a -- oil is fungible, and if there are additional chinese investments, let's say, in sudan, that means that they buy less from saudi arabia and others can buy more from saudi arabia. so there is in terms of the chinese going out policy, that is not contrary to our interests except when there are investments in particular countries where it complicates the ability to affect their behavior, such as iran. and i am pleased to say that in the last two years that china has not expanded its energy investments in iran. it was something we pressed them, pressed them on, and they have behaved accordingly.

this administration has developed a framework of cooperation including things like building efficiency, alternative sources of energy, electric car standards, um, conservation of energy is something that's in both our interests. there are, of course, some conflicting interests, and the conflicting interests are in the area of technology. who is going to have the technology of the future that can provide for future sources of oil? we have the edge in many of these areas, for instance, in the shale gas and shale oil area and in many other areas. and it's an important source of american competitive strength that we maintain that edge. >> professor friedberg? >> yes, greetings to my friend, the professor. i think there are possibilities

for cooperation here maybe not direct, but parallel if you like, the development of new sources of energy that jeff referred to. the united states is in the midst of what may become a revolution in its ability to extract oil and natural gas using new technologies from sources close to home which would have economic and also strategic implications for us that would be very positive. i think the technologies that american companies are developing for those purposes are of strategic significance, and we ought to seek to maintain our advantage and our lead. the sea lanes of communication are, obviously, vital because much oil travels over sea, and that's, again, one of the reasons why is the united states has such a strong interest in the peaceful resolution of disputes in the south china sea. the stability in regions that produce oil is also an energy --

is also extremely important. and here the united states and china may have interests that at times diverge. china has at times been willing to enter into commercial relationships with countries whose governments we and others were seeking to pressure because of their human rights policies. and i think this is of particular importance in the persian gulf and, again, it has to do with iran. nothing that i can think of would be worse to the stability and functioning of the energy markets at least in the near term than a war, particularly a war involving nuclear weapons in the persian gulf. and for that reason i would hope that china would be willing to do more than it has to join the rest of the international community in pressing iran to abandon its ambitions to acquire nuclear weapons. >> okay. second question from a viewer from twitter. victor, foundation strategy group, seattle, washington, on

the west coast. the topic is political reform. how would obama or romney administration encourage political reform and strengthen civil society in china? dr. friedberg, you may go first. >> encouraging political reform, again, this is something that jeff and i have both touched on. it's not something, obviously, the united states can do directly, but we can do it indirectly in a variety of different ways. one that i think is potentially very important and we've begun to make strides is encouraging chinese students who want to come and study in the united states. i now have students who come to princeton. it used to be the case that they came primarily to study science and engineering. now we have students coming to study politics and economics, and that is, i think, all to the good, exposure to a full range of ideas and perspectives, ultimately, will have a beneficial effect on china's future development. i mentioned earlier the

importance of civil society groups in china. in many cases these will be private actors, nongovernmental organizations supported by private individuals of foundations that are seeking to promote legal reform, protection of the rights of women and so on. and, again, the role of the government in that is indirect, but it's something that we have an interest in encouraging and seeking to promote. and, again, i mentioned the importance of communication and easing or increasing the ability to ease with which people within china can communicate with one another and also be exposed to the full array of information from the outside world. so there are things that we can do that are mostly indirect. >> dr. bader. >> um, just briefly, what happens between governments on human rights and democracy issues is much, much less important than what happens between our societies.