this can take a year, a couple years, or never get done. so that -- i organized an event two weeks ago where jeff fuller, who invetted -- he became the father of vonage, and he said, i'm a dreamer. and to him voip was ham radio talking to people all over the world in the internet age. he said if you make me come to a washington agency and get permission before i do it, i'll still dream, will just do it somewhere else. and that is the thing -- the change i'm -- the thing i like about the wheeler proposal is i want to preserve that flexibility for people who come up with strange ideas, have the latitude to try them. >> host: professor christopher yoo of the university of pennsylvania. please come back.

>> president obama is in china for the asia-pacific economic summit before heading to the g20 summit in brisbane, australia. up next, discussion on u.s. relations with china and what we can expect from the summit. this is 40 minutes. >> with president obama attending the asia-pacific economic cooperation summit this week we're joined at our desk by bonnie glasser. remind us of the significance of he submit and what the president is trying to do. >> guest: president obama is attending the summit in beijing along with the leaders of 20 other economies, to talk about trade liberalization. this is an agenda of this organization that was created in 1989, to try and promote smoother investment and reduce

tariffs on goods that are exchanged among all of these 21 economies. so, the president will attend this meeting, and then afterwards, he will have other meetings as well. he will talk to the heads of the other 11 nations that are negotiating the transpacific partner ship, new free trade agreement, very high quality. will have standards for environment and labor that this country is working very, very hard on, and i think it's really the litmus test for the obama administration's rebalance to asia. >> are we expecting a signed tpp or what is going to be the physical results of this week, any treaties being signed while the president is over there? >> guest: nothing is going to be signed in tpp. that would be a surprise to everyone. but hopefully there will be some progress, and that is very important because there have

been some very difficult issues, particularly between the u.s. and japan. now that the mid-term elections are over, and the republicans have taken control of the senate, there really is, i think, in hope that we can move forward with this trade agreement that in fact the congress can give the president trade promotion authority going forward. and then after the apec meeting, the president will have a summit with chinese president cheng chui ping, and that begins the evening of the 11th with an informal chat between the two presidents about a number of important strategic issues, global issues and a bilateral, economic, and military issues, and the sect day there is a -- it's formal state visit. so he will be continuing his conversations with ping through lunch and then travels to

myanmar for the east asia summit >> host: you brought up the mid-term elections. dot does coming into the submit a week after his party did unexpectedly poorly in the mid-term elections, weaken the president's hand as he is trying to negotiate these efforts or change the way some of these foreign leaders are viewing him in their negotiations? >> guest: undoubtedly presidents from other nations will see obama as a lame duck, entering into his last two years, but of course that frees him up potentially to accomplish some things in the foreign policy arena. he does have the potential to work with congress on this very important new transpacific partnership agreement and when he meets with chinese president ping he is in a stronger position than he is when we visited china in november of 2009. when the united states was

suffering with its economy -- its economy was in difficult straits. now the u.s. economy is really scoring some gains. the gdp growth rate at three and a half percent. china's economy is gibbing to slow down and the -- is beginning to slow down and the chinese are facing a host of difficulties. so i think the president is in a strong position meeting with the chinese president. >> we're talking talking with be glaser, talking about u.s. china relations during the summit in beijing where the president is traveling, gave a speech this morning. our phone lines are open if you have questions or comments.

>> host: a question for you on what this week means to china and the leaders here's headlines from papers reporting. the economy nist magazine showing off the cap yales about to host the diplomatic colonel ought party, and then from this weekend's "washington post," china is in overdrive, putting on its best face for the apec summit. >> guest: president xi jinping is leading an important meeting. the last time they hosted was in 2001, and china is now the largest economy in the world if you measure it in -- but it is a very important player not only in its region but increasingly globally. it just stood up an asia infrastructure investment bank. it is working with other

nations, the indians and the russians russians and brazil to set up another bank. the chinese have a great deal of money, and they are could go this economic influence to try to create a situation where countries in the world are dependent on china and, therefore, will not challenge chinese interests. xi jinping wants to get respect from all of the important countries in the world and this is a very important coming, out party for him. >> host: china seen as the center of a focus for human rights concerns inch -- in recent weeks in terms of hong kong, here's a recent speech that secretary kerry gave at the johns hopkins university's advance school -- school for advanced international studies, talking about china's human

rights. >> the united states and china, the two largest consumers of energy, and we're the world's two largest committers of global greenhouse gasses. together we account for that roughly -- it's about 45% and climbing. unfortunately. so we need to solve this problem together. why? because neither one of us can possibly solve it alone. even if every single american biked to work or car-pooled to school, or used only solar panels to power their homes, if we reduced our emissions to zero. if we planted, each of us in america, does trees. if we eliminated all of our domestic green house gast emissions, guess what? that still wouldn't be enough to counteract the carbon pollution fromming from china and the rest of the world, and the same would be true for china if they

reduced everything and we continued. we would wipe out their gains, they would wipe out our gains. because today, if even one or two major economies neglects to respond to this threat, it will erase the good work done everywhere else. never before has there been a greater urgency to countries around the world coming together to meet what is not just an environmental threat, but an economic threat. a security threat. health threat. a security threat because we will see refugees in certain parts of the country displaced by vast changes in the ability to grow food, the able to seek water and the ability to survive and that will change the nature of security and conflict in the world. that's the reality of what we're up against. and that's why it is so imperative the united states and china lead the world with

genuine reductions that put us on a path to real progress. the good news is, our shared responsibility to address climate change brings with it one of the greatest economic opportunities in history, with shared responsibility can come shared prosperity, the solution to climate change is as clear as the problem itself. and it's not somewhere out there, pie in the sky, over the horizon, impossible to grab ahold of. it's staring news the face. the solution is energy policy. it's as simple as that. make the right choices in your energy policy, you solve the problem of climate change. >> host: that of course was secretary kerry talking about climate change and energy policy. we'll get to human rights concerns in a community which he also talked about the speech. energy policy and climate

change, an issue 0 for apec. is it something the president himself is expected to talk to leader of china and the asian nations about. >> guest: i think we can see that secretary kerris very passionate about the issue and it has been a topic of discussion between the united states and china. and some progress is being made. the environmental degradation in china has really come to the -- become seriously considered and recognized by chinese leaders, and they burn a lot of coal. the pollution is terrible. if you visit chinese cities, you can hardly see across the street. so, this is an area where progress can be made. there will be new international climate change negotiations launched in paris next we're. it's very important for the autos united states and china, going into these negotiations, to feel each other out about

what they can agree on, what kind of commitments they can make in terms of putting caps on emissions, and setting targets. so, this is a conversation that president obama is likely to have with chinese president xi jinping and this is where the commissions share a common interest. >> host: we're talking -- let'sa few calls. charles is waiting in florida. good morning. >> caller: good morning. thank you for c-span. an opportunity to ask questions. i would like to go back to 20 years ago or so when we, unfortunately, voted and approved nafta, which opened up the borders between mexico and canada. i believe up in louisville, kentucky, where general electric made refrigerators and stoves and there were 38,000 people

employed there, long wife international harvester. it's now turned into a rust belt, just like most of the midwest. all those jobs, all those factories went to mexico. or canada. that was a g.o.p., ronald reagan effort, unfortunately one that bill clinton signed off on, but it's been pushed by the republican party. we went from nafta to wto. nixon opened up china because we wanted to sell a billion mcdonald's hamburgers to the chinese and now look what we brought? so entire factories are packed up and shipped to china bus you can't compete with 25-cent an hour later. >> host: does nafta and wto -- talk about how they're hang over what is happening with the tpp negotiations. >> guest: well, there are clearly different views in this country about whether we should be pursuing a free trade agenda.

and very controversy as to what has come out of nafta, but i think if you look at the asia-pacific region, this is an area where american exports are growing, and prospects for growing them in the future are quite great. they're in this -- in apec, we have 40% of the world's population. 44% of the world's trade, and 53% of the world's gdp. so, this is a group of countries that are voluntarily coming together to try and lower tariffs, to increase trade, and i think this is good for the united states, and the other countries that are engaged in this process. this is different from wto. it is not -- there is no enforcement mechanism as there is in wto. this is a process of consultation among nations. >> host: as the u.s. is trying to do this, can you talk about

china's efforts and china's trade agreements with some of these same countries in the region, where do they stand? >> guest: well, china has a number of bilateral free-trade agreements inch fact one was just announced yesterday with south korea, and there will be new free trade agreements that will be negotiated by the chinese. there is a group of countries that is negotiating what is called the regional cooperation economic partnership, orr cep, which some people say is somewhat competitive with the new transpacific partnership. i actually think they're quite different. the tpp is a far more high standard, high quality agreement that will really set standards for the 21st century, whereas this rcep is just a knitting together of existing free-trade agreements but there will still be benefits that will adrew

countries. the nuss is not involved in the rcep. we're focusing on the transpacific partnership. >> host: serge is up next, german town, maryland, on our independent line. >> caller: good morning. so, i just want to talk about the fact -- about the energy policy of president obama's -- giving the republicans all they want. he opened up oil refineries, opened up the oil coastline, and yet you ask republicans -- they talk about him as if he hasn't done anything in terms of energy policy. he has given them everything they wanted and they treat him like he is a liar. so, what is your guest think about that? >> host: bonnie glaser if you want to talk about the political

battles and what the president is trying to do in as. >> guest: when it comes to energy, this is an area in the u.s.-china relationship that has a lot of promise, and the president has his political battles back home. chinese president jinping probably faces similar political battles. there's a lot of interest groups within china that want to develop energy in the way they have for years, which is creating a lot of pollution and environmental challenges, and i think this is actually an area where the u.s. and china have had a lot of quiet cooperation going on in the last few years. they're exchanging technology, clean energy, but there's a lot of, off course, battles politically going ahead. >> host: some areas of trade dispute as well, high-profile, solar trade dispute between the united states and china. is that overhanging efforts that

sac kerry was talk -- that secretary kerr ya was talking about? >> guest: absolutely. there's been a great deal of controversy over the solar panel area. i have heard that those are possibly going to be resolved. that would provide, think, a real boost for american companies that do want to compete in china, because they have actually been facing a lot of obstacles and this is true of many american companies. the president has said repeatedly, there is a really unfair playing field in china. the chinese give preferences to chinese companies, particularly state-owned companies, that operate in china. american businesses ten years ago used to be one of the strongest supporters of the u.s.-china relationship. that is really no longer true today because american companies -- some are making profits but they're facing more and more challenges.

this is also true, of course, for companies from other countries. so, this is an area where i think president obama has been very firm with the chinese, that we are looking for an even playing field. in terms of investment in particular, in financial services in china, where the chinese have not provided the same opportunities to american companies as they have to chinese companies. >> host: let's go back to that issue of human rights. here's a headline from "the wall street journal": hong kong democracy protests are far from the apec spotlight in beijing. is this an issueat president obama will discuss in these side bar meetings? >> guest: president obama will certainly discuss hong kong with chinese president jinping. the protests there have been ongoing since mid-march. there is a desire among the students in particular, in hong

kong, to directly elect the candidates. now, the chinese in -- when they took over hong kong, they promised they would allow hong kong to move towards universal suffrage. what the chinese basely agreed to is one man, one vote, allow the people of hong kong to vote for a slate of candidates that is preapproved by beijing, meaning they don't have much choice and, therefore, democracy in hong kong looks to be really quite far away. i think that the president, president obama, is worried about how these protesters are being treated, and also worried about the future of democracy in hong kong. there was some use of tear gas and pepper spray against these students. so far no violence. but some people worry about what happened tianimen square when

the pla fired on student inside china. that is unlikely to take place in hong kong. the president's message will be solve this peacefully and in a way that you win the support of the hearts and minds of the people in hong kong. you continue to create prosperity in hong kong and move toward fulfilling that promise, that china made years ago. >> host: let's try again with secretary kerry's message on human rights, this from that johns hopkins speech last week. >> united states will always advocate for all countries to permit their citizens to express their grieve vans freely, publicly, peacely, and without fear of let tribye. that's why we have opinion out about the situations in hong kong and elsewhere in china because respect for fundamental

freedoms is now always has been a centerpiece of american foreign policy. and because we have seen again and again that respect for rule of law, and the protection of human rights, are essential to any country's long-term growth, prosperity, and stability. and to their respect in the world. >> host: bonnie glacier, give you chance to comment on secretary kerry's statements from last week. >> guest: there is growing concern in the administration, as there should be, about human rights in china. there has been a crackdown on dissidents, on -- in tibet. a reversal, i think, of some of the progress that had been made years ago in china. we see xi jinping trying to begin economic reform but has no agenda for political reform. the national security adviser

susan rice, just before the president left for choi, did meet with some human rights advocates from the united states and china to talk about these issues, and again, this is an issue that is always on president obama's alleged. sometimes not -- agenda. sometimes not publicly but always behind closed doors when he speak with chinese presidents, he raise concerns the united states has about human rights and democracy in china. >> host: we're talk giving bonny glacier of the center for strategic and international study as we talk bet u.s. china relationship. ken in cincinnati, ohio, on the line for republicans. you're up next. >> caller: yes. my name is ken anderson. a host a radio show here. i hear a lot of praise for the communicates economy but it's a false comparison. they are a communist government, a communist economy, their government owns businesses. we in america are freely,

individually owned market, the free market, and the david versus the goliath when you have a chinese company purchase the waldorf astore -- astoria. it makes it a whole different scenario. finally, this whole issue with the xl pipeline, we do know if we don't go through with it china is sitting there waiting to take this oil and so do you think that we are on the right track when it comes to some of our issues dealing with china? >> host: do you want to city with the keystone xr pipeline. >> guest: the chinese are importing oil from russia, from kazakhstan. they have a tremendous appetite for oil, and so there's actually great potential in the united states chooses to export oil, natural gas. american companies are

interested in talking with the chinese about shell gas in china. so, there is a potential for more energy cooperation in this area. i think that the issue that the caller raise about the difference between american and chinese economies is valid to some extent. but the part of the chinese economy that provides growth for china comes from the privately owned companies, and the chinese government knows that. the chinese leadership wants to grow this portion of the economy, and in fact, xi jinping when he was at the third -- a year ago that the chinese communist party held he talked about the market being the many driver of the economy. so, even though, yes there is a large percentage of the chinese economy that still is state owned enterprises, nevertheless,

there is movement towards more competition and recognition that this is really the future of china. so, in fact, when it comes to economic drivers, and dynamics, china, i think, will become more like the united states in political terms, probably not. >> host: maria from new jersey on our line for independents golf morning, you're on with bonnie glacier. >> caller: good morning. i have a couple comments i'd like to comment on. before dar tanner left, he put that into the relative -- could still profit from insider trading, and i know the bush family started in china long ago and i would be curious to know how many members members of cons have relatives with stocks stocd

disagree any of this is good for united states citizens. we august to go back to the import tariff issue gut our own borders back, make everything in this country that we possibly can and also in 1944, we decided we were going to take england's police in the world, which explains why we have a parliament now with slates of candidates screaming at each other, going around the world, interfere, having little wars, and we're actually putting infrastructure all around the world for these global companies. i think we ought to listen to our forefathers and have no more foreign entanglements. >> host: several different points there from maria. >> guest: well, a there's certainly a view in this country, and elsewhere around the world, that we should limit our foreign entanglements. i think the united states is inextricably connected to the rest of the world so i think it

is -- globalization has its up sides and down side but is probably impossible to turn back the clock and close the door and produce everything for our country that we want to consume. on the caller's first question, don't know anything about the bush family or other -- >> host: congressional -- >> guest: i know nothing about this issue. but i would say, if you compare to the situation in china where there is some of the worst corruption in the world, you will find that the united states looks very press steen. this is -- pristine, this is not to say we don't have examples of people owning stocks in companies or engaging in what might be elicit practices but when i look at the situation in china, the corruption there, it is undermining the health and well-being of the nation, and particularly the economy, and this hagg has become a focus of

chinese president xi jinping to root out the corruption, and he has actually been quite successful at it so far. >> host: are some of the high-profile cases made into it u.s. newspapers part of an effort by xi jinping to do that and what were some of the cases to remind viewers. >> guest: well, there was one particular case with -- li who was expected to be joining the standing committee of the central committee of the party. so this was -- he was going to be in the top seven of the country. he was taken down. and then the most recent case is jo yo congress northerns early the head of the state state security and he is now under investigation. but in addition to these tigers, as xi jinping likes to call them, the joins government government-the-chinese government is going after what they call the flies, the local officials and this is terribly

important because the bribes that they take and the corruption they are involved in, really affect the people at the love level, and if xi jinping wants to re-invigorate the communist party and ensure there's loyalty, the has to root out the corruption at the lower levels, not just at the higher levels. >> host: eve is up next from brooklyn, new york, on the line for democrats good morning. >> caller: good morning. i'd like to talk about the -- i feel good that the president of the united states was welcomed to go to china, and that the chinese government is willing to sit down with the united states and negotiate. nobody has to get forced to sit down at the table and i think it's a good thing. and one more other point i would like to bring out is the gas prices. gas prices here on the east coast are down to $2.75 here in new jersey. so, the gas prices are down

pretty good. so, i feel good that the president is over there, and that they welcomed him. i think that they could share a good ideas and share some ideas with china on how to clean up the environment and on in of those human rights issues. >> host: the president there for a three-day visit this week, which we're talking bit with bonnie glacier of the center for strategic and international studies. rick up next, in kentucky, on the line for republicans good. morning, rick. >> caller: good morning. i just wanted to comment on -- i'd say obama's over there begging for more money with china. i'd like to know what we owe china, and never going to be anymore good jobs here because of even if they was a good job out there the epa would shut them down. as far as burning coal that, destroyed the jobs here in kentucky. coal jobs is just went to nothing. i got a cousin worked at a mind

there was 3,000 men working there one time. they're shut down completely. nobody working. >> host: rick asked what do we owe china. some concerns about china owning parts of the u.s. -- the -- owning part of the u.s. debt. >> guest: the chinese buy our treasurybands and have a large are large portion of the foreign investment in treasury bonds. the reality is the largest percentage is owned by americans so we actually have more than 50% of treasury bonds in the united states. i think that the president has been successful in reducing some of our debt. there's mo work to be done, but the chinese are, i think, not in a position to hold this over the head of the united states. that is, they really can't go out tomorrow and dump these treasury bonds. it would harm them. they will undermine their own economy. they recognize that they are so

closely linked with the united states. we have over half a trillion dollars in trade with china annually, and it is growing, and this is a relationship that is very much interdependent. the chinese are now investing more in the united states. and this is something that i think america should welcome. there may be some sectors where we don't want the chinese to invest, and that's why we have what we call the process to review anything that might be strategically sensitive. but those would be for very, very small areas of investment. telecommunications, but the chinese are bringing money in and if you talk to governors in the united states, mayors, they're bringing money into cities and states, and this should be welcome. this is something that is, i think, bringing jobs back to the united states that many people

said a few years ago the chinese were taking away. >> host: new haven, connecticut, is next. glenn is on the line for democrats. good morning, glenn. >> caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. just wanted to comment on the part where she said that the united states is in the greater economic hand here when president obama visits china. i don't entirely agree with that. i think that the chinese have a large amount of cash reserves, and a socialist economic system does not pour their reserves into the economy as fast as we do. they're very patient and methodical, and secondly, we have to be very careful about chinese military power. no one knows exactly how much money they're pouring into their military, and they have developed a medium range cruise missile, mobile to keep our carriers so far off the coast

that it's impossible for our planes to react in a military situation regarding patrols around the chinese coast. they developed a laser beam to shoot down drones. that may be spying on them or not. but i think that we should be very cautious about the way we approach china, and look for our strattic goals and keep that in mind when we're dealing with communist dictatorshippers only looking to e. -- enhance their able and dominate asia. >> host: want to pick up on concerns about chinese military goals and the weapons they developed? >> guest: i would very much agree with the caller's concern. the united states is, i think, very focused on dealing with the challenges poses by china's military. we are somewhat unclear about china's intentions, their strategic intentions and we don't know exactly how much they

spend on military, but we know they're evolving capabilities there is an effort by china to develop what the pentagon refers to as antiaccess area denial capables. this will basically -- this is a range of cruise missiles and fighter jets that will make it more costly for the u.s. navy to intervene in the event of a crisis, for example, if we have to come to the assistance of our ally, japan in waters near china. china had a coastal navy for men years and could only defendant areas close to its coastlineful it's now moving out self thousands of kilometers. the caller referred to a missile, the df21d, often referred to as a carrier killer. probably not that easy to hit a carrier but the united states is forced to couple up with new technology to defend our assets

when we deploy them in the region, and to some extent, operate further away from china in the event that we go to war. now, of course, the answer there is to make sure that we don't go to war with china, and i think neither nation would benefit from such a war. but there is clearly a military competition underway. >> host: can you update us on what happened with the air defense identification zone that was causing so much conflict there between not just the u.s. and china but japan as well and china. >> guest: yes, well in november last year, the chinese announced an air defense identification zone over the east china sea, and it overlapped not only with japan's what we call adiz, but also south koreas and to some extent taiwan's, and it was a surprise to all of the neighbors. so there was no consultation whatsoever. today the chinese are monitoring

that air space, and on occasion they do have a close call with japanese surveillance ships or japanese fighters that scramble to respond to chinese fighters, and there is a risk of an accident there. the united states, of course, does not honor this or observe this az. we function in the area, carry out or operations as we did previously, as if it didn't exist. the chinese are now thinking about establishing a similar adiz over the south china sea. this is something i think would cause great worry among all of the nations of southeast asia. but the chinese believe that these areas, what they call their near seas can the owes china sea-the-south china sea, and the yellow sea -- the think this all belongs to them, and they ultimately want to have the

capableity to dominate this area and take about disputes territories and to essentially be something like the hegemon in their region. and this should be of concern to the united states. but i think our military is very focused on the problem. >> host: a few minutes left. bob is up next from massachusetts on our line for independents good morning, bob. >> caller: good morning. thank you for takeing my call. i'd like bonnie's opinion on the gpp agreement? i agree we should be concerned about china's military expansion, but what is your opinion on letting vietnam -- we sort of expanding with vietnam's military capablity in order to contain china, but vietnam is also a military dictatorship and is also trying to take over southeast asia basically, trying to occupy cambodia and laos right now.

>> guest: the obama administration recently partially lifted a ban on the sale of weapons to vietnam, and this is in part because of vietnam's growing concerns about china. i think that what vietnam is likely to buy, what the u.s. is willing to sell, is very limited. we're talking about capabilities that will enhance vietnam to know what is going on in waters close to its closeline. >> host: not the f-22 -- >> guest: no. no. we are talking about the p-3 aircraft inch united states developed a more modern version of the p8 so the p3s will become available for sale, and i think that's what vietnam will primarily acquire. they depth have sufficient capability to know what is going on in this -- in the water around their coastline. they call that maritime domain awareness. i think that the military

relationship between the u.s. and vietnam will degree very slowly. there are barriers on both sides. u.s. continues to have some concern about human rights in vietnam. and the vietnamese also really don't want to get that close to the united states. they are right along china's border and want to maintain a good realship with china as well. so, every country in the region around china, they're all smaller than china and all want to reach out to the united states to other powers outside the region, india, australia so they can have some counterweight to help them to hedge against the possible that china, as it rises, uses its power to coerce them. >> host: got time for pun or two more calls. colleen in wisconsin. you're up next. >> caller: i want to ask about the fact that this ttp agreement

has clauses in it that says for a multinational corporations that anything such as osha rules, either here or abroad, any environmental rules, any patents, like for drugs, that would extend the patents longer so they wouldn't become generic drugs, would be called a trade barrier, and would not be allowed, and if you try to fight it, case would not be fought in american courts but with the tribunal made up of corporate lawyers. in. >> host: bonnie -- glasser,

concerns of on the tpp sunny don't know the details of the pharmaceuticals and pat tens. this is a agreement that is currently under associations, the tpp. and of course when trade agreements are under negotiations they are secret. so none of these chapters have really been released yet. there are certainly components of it that are going to be controversial but i think from more strategic perspective, this is very important to the united states. countries in asia want the united states to be involved more economically. we were talking about our military presence. that's important, too. but we need to be more involved economically. we need to fine more ways to liberalize trade and open up investment that will bring more jobs back to the united states. and enable more american companies to invest in the region. so, i think there's a lot of pluses and there's no doubt going to be some minuses as well

>> host: bonnie glacier, senior adviser for asia for the center for strategic and international studies. you can see her on twister@bonnie glacier and her work is csis.org. we appreciate your time. >> thank you. >> president obama's asia-pacific trip started. he mets with chinese president xi jinping. thursday in friday he is in myanmar for a meeting with the burmese president and a separate meeting with suu kyi. the final leg of the trip is a g20 summit in australia on saturday and sunday.

>> for everyone. it is a glorious service. this time it's for the country. the call comes to every citizen.

it is an unending struggle, to make and keep government representative. >> probably the most important political figure in wisconsin history, and one of the most important in the history of the 20th century in the united states. he was a reforming governor, he defined what progressivism is. he was one of the first use the term "progressive" to self-identify. he was a united states senator who was recognized by his peers as one of the five greatest senators in american history. an opponent of world war i. stood his ground advocating for free speech. of all he was about the people in the era after the civil war, america changed radically from a nation of small farmers and small producers and small

manufacturers, and by the late 1870s, 1880s, 1890s, we had concentrations of wealth, we had growing inequality, and we had concern about the influence of money in government. so he spent the latter part of the 1890s giving speeches all over wisconsin. if you wanted to speaker for your club our group, he would give a speech. he went to county fairs, he went to every kind of event that you could imagine. and built a reputation for himself. by 1900, he was ready to run for governor, advocating on behalf of the people, and he had two issues. one, the direct primary. no more selecting candidates in convention. two, stop the interests. specifically the railroads.

president obama is in china for the first leg of a trip to attend a series of asia-pacific meetings, including the g20 summit in australia. last week the center for strategic and international studies previewed the issues the president will face during his trip. this is about an hour and a half. [inaudible conversations] >> good morning and welcome to the center for strategics' international studies. pardon our microphones with'll get those fixed. like to welcome you this morning well have a terrific briefing for the president's trip.

i'd like to say congratulations to good friend of ours who just got married, julie pace, who is just pack from her honeymoon. [applause] >> identity like to intro -- i'd like to introduce my colleague, dr. mike green. >> thank you, congratulations. we're going to give you an overview of the president's trip to the asia-pacific region and then open it up for your questions. the president will be in china november 10 to 12 for the apec, asia-pacific economic cooperation leader summit, and the ceo submit and then a visit with xi jinping. then in myanmar, burma, for the east asia summit, the asean summit and then immediate with aung san suu kyi. he is in brisbane, australia,

from the 15th to 16th for the g20, and in brisbane the white house has said he well do a major speech on asia policies. so we'll go through those in order and provide whatever the opposite of monday morning quarterbacking is, friday evening previews. i'll start with an overview and talk about what is at stake for the president and the country, particularly after the mid-term results. matt goodman will focus on the apec meeting this brice ban g20 and u.s. china economic issues. ernie bauer on the east asia summit, the asean submit, and then the engagement with myanmar burma on the trip, and then steve morrison will conclude with a wrap on what is happening on the ground in myanmar, based on a trip he and others took recently. i'll also address some of the

u.s.-china security issues up front, too. so, looking at the rules of the mid-term, for those who travel to the region, the polling that shows that in some cases two-thirds of americans are not satisfied with president obama's leadership style, half of democrats are not satisfied with president obama's leadership style, that largely squares with what most of us who travel in the region hear from governments across asia. in fact, we found in surveys we did here at csis of strategic think tankers, policy, experts in ten asia countries, the rebalance or the pivot to asia has 80% support, very high support. but there were questions in the survey, majority of respondents said they had questions about implementation, and the election result in some ways may

reinforce the concerns from new zealand to china. weather -- whether the administration has the wherewithal to follow through on the pivot or rebalance as advertised. there are some substantive areas of progress. the obama administration has the best attendance record in asia of any u.s. administration. they've made every asean regional forum. held for more meetings with japan, australia, and korea, and the president now attends regular hill the east asia summit. so in terms of showing up, pretty consistent and high attendance record. the defense department is, although it's in a smaller and shrink budget, shifting relative resources to the pacific, especially the navy. mike froman at u.s. gr is clearly prioritizing tpp the

transpacific partnership, over other aspects of the trade agenda, and despite questions about implementation of the pivot and question busy probe are reside leader shown right now in our survey of strategic thinkers in asia, which we just published last spring, it was striking that a significant majority of elites in asia think the u.s. will bed the leading power in the region in ten years, and outside of china, and one or two other countries, a significant majority, particularly among our allies, said they want the u.s. to be the leading power in asia in the coming years. so, there is a lot of opportunity for the rebalance of the pivot to succeed but there are problems in the president's chip it's going to be very important in terms of addressing those, and there are three i would highlight. these are thing wes have noted for some time in our write hearing at csis. the first is that how the

president and how the cabinet talk about the pivot keeps changing. and even the kind of bumper sticker keeps shifting. for a little while, for example, recently -- senior officials-cabinet members were talking bat new model of relations with chinad a vanned by xi jinping. afraid that is not popular month the allies because in the chinese formation of the new model, no other asian country is a great power, just the u.s. and china. so the administration appears to have dropped that. we have an article coming out, my colleague and i in washington quarterly next week, that cal logs the descriptions of the pivot or rebalance, in every major speech on it from the administration, and there's always a list of throw or four priorities, and i won't read them all bit they change

everytime. most recently secretary kerry said that the core of the pivot will be the state of economic growth, clean energy revolution, rules-based stable region, dignity security and opportunity. very different list than tom donald and susan rice, the president, and past iterations. so, there is some confusion, i think, about exactly what the u.s. bottom line is. the president will be giving a speech in brisbane at the end of the trip. he usually speaks most consistently about asia. it's an opportunity to lay down clearly what the strategy is, what the priorities are and his commitment. which gets to the second problem, which is most people who look at asia would argue that tpp, the transpacific partnership, is an essential pillar of a credible u.s. focus on the asia-pacific.

the trade reps are working hard. the administration strategy, as many of you know, is to get a deal on tpp, particularly with japan, and then use that to sell fast track or trade promotion authority to the hill, convince them to then pass the fast track authority that would allow the deal to be completed. it makes some political sense but is completely backwards. every other trade deal we have done, we have done the trade promotion authority or fast track first and then tpp. that's harder in the u.s. congress but without i we have not been able to get deals with major trading partners. why? because they question whether they should be putting their best deal on to table if the president has not secured authority from the congress. i was in japan and came back monday. i can tell you that at the highest level across the japanese government there's a sense that there's progress but

they're done. they've put the best deal on the table until the see some evidence and they were waiting for the mid-terms -- that the white house will reach out and work with the congress to get fast track or trade promotion authority. it doesn't have to actually pass before tpp but has to be in movement. ambassador gave a very compelling strategic speech on tpp to a forum we organized with the chamber of commerce. best rationale. never mentioned tpa. so there has to be some outreach from congress and some sense in japan in particular that congress, republican congress, is onboard, or we're going to very possibly be stuck we where we are. with tpp, the rebalance of the pivot will have real legs in the last two yours after the administration. the president will meet prime

minister abe. the dynamics are frosty between the u.s. and japan but it's a chance to reboot -- i his tight use that phrase -- but reboot the politics of the negotiations and try to get it done. the third challenge of the pivot is there's a broad impression, hardly new, that the u.s. has lost interest in asia, syria, isis, ukraine. it will be key for the president to demonstrate that we're focused on our security commitments in asia. it's a tough balancing act. ...

china was using mercantile and maritime coercion on the smaller states in the region. he raised cyber tried to frame it in something china could agree with because china has a commercial interest in entering the national property rights. he raised human rights. it's a good framing of these issues and trying to avoid turning these into zero-sum topics in u.s. generations. the problem is although there have been some important chinese contributions china sent 1000 medics to help with a bow in

africa has promised to cooperate on terrorism with respect to sharing job although i'm not sure how much that helps us with vices and rimpac for the first time naval exercises that we do in the pacific but the fbi has been pretty clear there is no change in china's policies on cyber. the fbi has been more open about the increase in hacker attacks contributed to china. the senate armed services committee recently reported penetration of u.s. military contractors computer systems and the fbi has revealed major data downloads of nonmilitary u.s. health care data from china. on the south china sea and east china sea on the maritime front also no real change. there was some hope that the coast guard and naval activities in the south china sea vis-à-vis vietnam last summer when they

ended that there might be a more relaxed chinese attitude. certainly in the east china sea and japan the number of incursions by chinese ships went down but when the south china sea vietnam vietnam operations in the pink urchins in japan went right back up. then in october there was a two-week period were some people saw optimism because of a number of incursions by the chinese coast guard vessels into and around it went down to the data came out it was because of the typhoons and the weather. in fact the operations around the south china sea are at a routine regular level now with daily incursions by the coast guard and what's troubling is the pla navy which used to operate 2.5 to three hours sailing time away is now into our sailing time so it has gotten closer to a coast the

coast guard standoff in the south china sea china is expanding its military runway on the island which beijing will be used for regular patrolling of the district in which a lot of people in the regency is a precursor to another announcement of an air defense identification called it the i.d. comparable to what china did in the east china sea. so this is a tough nut to crack for the president. he can wrap it in rhetoric and try to build confidence that the facts on the ground are still not a crisis but still trending anyway that will make it a challenging trip. let me end there. are we still using our -.

>> thank you mike. thanks mike. so economics is going to run throughout this trip on almost, at almost every stop and i think they're broadly three themes that will run throughout the trip. growth, trade and infrastructu infrastructure. the good news is that everyone in the region once all three of those things. the challenge is that there are some pretty significant differences in going about achieving those things. just to take the three economic stops. first aipac. the aipac summit as mike said will be held on november 10 and 11th ed yong chee hoo which is a suburb of beijing 50 kilometers north of beijing. just a quick background apec was established as a foreign ministry meeting in 1989

elevated to leaders level in 1993 so this was the 22nd summit. apec is a group made up of 21 asia-pacific economies and if you are writing about this picture to say at economies and not countries. it's designed to promote regional economic integration. china last posted, the last time i posted apec was in september 2001 a few weeks after 9/11. china has laid out three basic teams for its apec year. one is regional economic integration which is a standard theme for apec and every host has that is one of its themes. second economic growth and structural reform. particularly with the adjective innovative and inclusive growth and reform attached to that theme and then thirdly connectivity meaning both hard

and soft connections of infrastructure, people and institutions across the asia-pacific region and this is where infrastructure comes up. it's going to be a major topic. there has been a lot of work in apec over a number of years and there will be a focus probably this year on public-private partnerships and creating an enabling environment for infrastructure investment in the region and generating long-term private sector financing for infrastructure. then apec does a whole bunch of under those three themes of all whole bunch of pic and shovel work to promote greater trade and investment in the region including a commitment to a 10% improvement in supply-chain performance by 2015 so a focus on global value chains which is really the story on trade in asia. fossil fuel subsidies, health anticorruption women's

empowerment. there is a whole array of issues that apec covers on a broad agenda. their three nonheadlines as it were from apec. one is ppp as mike mentioned. tpb is actually in some sense born from the rib of apec. it's made up of 12 of the 21 apec economies and it is a path towards the ultimate apec vision of a free trade area in the asia-pacific. as mike said right now the negotiations are not completed. there has been the hope that tpp might be agreed by the time of this apec summit. that is i think now we can say with great certainty not going to happen. the key dynamic that needs to change is the u.s. and japan need to agree on on a bilateral -- bilateral market access. that is quite close. there's a tiny hope that could

be done before next week but i would say that's also pretty unlikely at this point and as mike said tpa is key to this question is whether the noises yesterday why the president and the republican party leaders was promising because it indicated trade within tpa specifically were one of the things they might be able to agree on. the second thing that is probably not going to be a headline here about the free trade area of asia-pacific. it was a chinese goal this year setting a deadline for achieving a free trade area in asia-pacific and doing a feasibility to start negotiations towards that end. that is now probably not going to be part of the free trade which is something the u.s. championed in 2006, 2007 so it's part of the apec story but the

u.s. and other tpp partners are reluctant to agree to a firm deadline to achieve the free trade asia-pacific in a feasibility study towards that until tpp is completed. a third thing that will be sort of lurking around but not central to the apec agenda is the asian infrastructure investment bank which china proposed recently and signed two weeks ago i guess among 20 asia-pacific countries and this is a chinese initiative to promote a greater infrastructure investment in the region. so far some of the major countries in asia have not signed on. india has signed on in tunisia may sign on soon but korea and australia and japan and the united states have not signed on to this bank.

i can talk more about that but that's going to be lurking around the apec corridors. it works now? okay. thank you. just to duty 20 i am skipping. the trips chronologically or skipping from the apec meeting in china to the g20 meeting in brisbane australia which will be held november 15 and 16th. again background, quick background this is the ninth summit of the g20 leaders since the first summit in washington in november 2008. actually the g20 is actually a g. 49. i counted last night is actually 19 individual countries plus the european union which brings another 28 minus four e.u. states that have their own seat plus six invited guests and

those invited guests this year are spain, singapore, myanmar as the chair of asean mauritania as the chair of the ea you, senegal is the chair of the new economic partnership for african development and for a reason that is not entirely obvious which is a gimmick solidarity to new zealand will also be there this year. australia has laid out to themes for the g20 this year, growth and resilience of the global economy. growth is very traditional. that's what the leaders have been talking about since they met first in 2008 how to preserve and enhance global growth. obviously right now global growth is weaker than anybody would like. the u.s. is growing but not as fast following a deep recession

and everybody else has growth challenges. europe is on the brink of a recession due to inflation. china is slowing. japan is still struggling to get onto a faster growth trajectories of growth is something everybody in that room at the g20 is going to be concerned about. the specific australian approach to deal with growth is to get the finance ministers of the g20 back in their board to agree to a target for raising global growth, actually raising global gdp by 2% over five years from the level of gdp that would be implied by current policy trajectory. so by 2018 the goal was to have an additional 2% of global gdp and to put in place new policies

that would achieve that objective. so everybody is going to come to the brisbane summit with individual growth strategies to achieve that target and contribute to that target and those strategies are probably going to center around again infrastructure, trade, deregulation, and structural reform. just a quick word on trade. the g20 has done two things on trade since the first summit. one is to make the commitment to stand still and protectionist measures. that commitment has been honored in the breach in many small ways but fundamentally at least we have not slid into the 1930s dow protectionism. it is also tried to encourage bill how rounds of multilateral trade to get to conclusion. that is not succeeded yet although last year they did agree in mali so that's a minor

success. unfortunately india has since blocked implementation of that agreement but that will be another topic of conversation but i think this year there will be a focus on value change aga again. the rest of the agenda is under the resilience banner. there will be financial regulatory reform at the end of 220 since the beginning. largely you will see a victory lap about all the good measures that the financial stability board has put into place to strengthen bank capital standards to deal with firms or banks that are too big to fail, to deal with shadow banking and over-the-counter drivers. also under resilience tax agreements. both to deal with tax evasion and tax avoidance. i think that maybe the biggest headline thing that australians are hoping to come out of the summit.

evasion, there has been an agreement automatic transfer of information on tax holders to crack down on tax evasion and on tax avoidance there's a focus on base erosion and profit shifting or ee bps is the terminology and there's an action plan to deal with that. there will be a major focus and also on the agenda will be international reform which has been on the agenda since the beginning. withholding that up right withholding that up right now is united states congress did not pass enabling legislation to implement imf quota reform in the u.s. is paying a big price for that in the g20 and more broadly in terms of the global economic governance story. then there will be some energy work, transparency of energy markets fossil fuel subsidies energy efficiency and creating a more up-to-date architecture for dealing with energy issues. the old world of opec and the

iaea but all of that needs to come together. finally just one final thing about the g20. the australians are aiming and you will be glad to hear this as journalists, three-page communiqué. if they achieve that it will be historic and i very much wish them luck with that. finally now skipping back to china, the bilateral stop in china very quickly. economics as you know it's been a traditional source of stability in the u.s. china economic relationship but there is growing friction in the economic relationship so the goal of president obama and president she is to remove or manage that friction and to find ways to expand cooperation in economic matters. again both sides have a mutual interest in strong and balanced growth and the u.s. side and think there will be quite a focus on domestic economic reform in china to promote

growth but also to level the playing field for u.s. business. there will be a u.s. focus on the old intellectual property protection plus some new serious concerns on cybersecurity and on the implementation of the antimonopoly law in china which is in the view of u.s. business has been implemented in a discriminatory way. then china is probably going to focus on the investment climate here in the united states and high-tech exports from the united states and china. both sides are going to try to put an emphasis on the bilateral investment treaty. negotiations which have been underway for a number of years but which the two sides agreed to accelerate last year. in theory they are going to

complete the framework at the end of this year in china is going to come forward with a negative list of investment restrictions early next year. frankly this is going to be a tough -- and we'll take a couple more years to get to the conclusion on the bilateral investment treaty but i think that's going to be the new organizing principle. then you'll have cooperation on economic related issues like climate change, ebola and probably will talk about the transfer of the pacific in asia-pacific bank and i'll be happy to talk about that if you are interested. >> thanks pata and welcome everybody. it's great to see you standing room only on a sunday morning in washington. last week the washington media pivoted towards asia. very good. welcome to csis. this is going to be a tough trip for the president.

i think when southeast asia looks at this trip and him coming they are wondering who is barack obama now after the midterm elections? i think they will want -- they will be trying to discern whether he has the commitment and political capability and political capital to follow through on earlier commitments as mike talked about. i think that's important. i think they will measure him on particularly economics for southeast asia. economics is the foundational bedrock of security in asia. that means tpp. so i think the southeast asians are going to want to hear from a president who i think is probably going to be spending political capital on elections and not on trade that will be shifting gears as we know in meeting republicans i think friday and tomorrow to talk

about areas they can agree on. we think trade is very positive and i think that will be seen positively by southeast asian leaders. other signals that they expect from the white house, they have already sina hands. southeast asia was sort of mystified by the cancellation of the secretary of defense chuck hagel's trip that was planned for vietnam and myanmar earlier this week. that is being read as an indication that the white house wants to focus on the economic aspects of the pivot. the southeast asians will be looking for that when he arrived in myanmar or burma, where the east asia summit and the east asian asean summit. this will be the ninth east asia summit that president obama will be getting back on track. you remember that he missed last year's east asia summit because

of budget wrangling with the very same republicans that have now taken the senate. he will be back. they will be looking at the u.s. will look at eas very much as a security and political aspects of their pivot where they viewed apec and tpp is the economic elements of their pivot. that's not the way the southeast asians seem necessarily and i think this is something that i hope the white house will work with economic managers and the u.s. government to address as they look to pivot 2.0 or a resetting of the pivot. southeast asia can't imagine an economic strategy for the united states for asia that doesn't include china. tpp looks a little strange to them. tpp as matt mentioned includes 12 countries including the united states but it's not eligible, not all the asean

countries were audible to join tpp. i think everybody wants to see tpp get them. they want to see the president's spending political capital on that. i think the southeast asians believe the indicator for that will be a strong statement out of the friday meeting with congressional leaders and the commitment to actually get tpa, trade promotion authority which they will see as a down payment on political capital by the white house on trade. next year the malaysians will host in east asia summit so a lot of attention will be put this ear on the structure of the east asia summit. i think americans and the white house want to talk about rationalizing a structure and how to -- how the asean regional forum and the ashdown defense ministers meetings relate to the eas i think you will see some work on the structure of the eas

ahead of the tenth anniversary. the president will also participate in the u.s. asean summit which is now i summit. it has been institutionalized since president obama has been in office from the leaders meeting which was a clever way to say the white house wasn't sure they were going to show up every year for a u.s. asean meeting. it's now a summit. i think great credit to president obama and the asean side for institutionalizing this important level of engagement. i think the white house wants to emphasize economic engagement in the asean which is smart pretty think they are going to make a case for an incredible stock of u.s. investment in asean and i know some math is being done over at the white house. you will hear more about that in the preview pretty think we have talked about this at csis. u.s. investment in asean is

multiples greater than it is in china. it is nearly 10 times as great as it is in india and if you look at total u.s. investment in asean relative to other investors and you include energy we are the biggest investor in asean by a factor of over two times. after the meetings he does in myanmar's capital and for those of you who are skateboarders it is a paradise for you. there are 10 lane roads that have no cars on them and you will really enjoy that. but he will do a bilateral with the present of myanmar there. you can tell the white house is managing the myanmar trip very carefully by the fact that the president called the president of myanmar and hung san suu kyi the leader of the opposition earlier this week to get ahead

of that trip. the present has three important issues to manage with myanmar situation. first and i think for most on most peoples minds is the 2015 election. right now hung san suu kyi cannot run. she is precluded by the burmese constitution from being eligible to run for president. i think the americans would like to see constitutional changes made before the election so she would be able to run. there is going to be a question i think this will be a hard one between the white house trying to support for economic and political reform in myanmar because after all this is a country which has foisted itself and made an incredible amount of political and economic reform but there's a real push from the senate and house legislators

including the new senate leader mitch mcconnell on human rights and democracy so the president is going to have to address this and i think he should. the fact that democracy and reform in myanmar cannot be allowed to stall. i think there's a recognition that you have to be practical about how much change the country can handle at one time. the other two issues that he has to address when he is there and i think steve will talk about that and the effort to achieve regional cease-fire. myanmar has a strong population that they have cease-fire negotiations with a wide group of minority, minorities on the periphery of that center and actually that is going very well. so the sovereign integrity of

myanmar is important in those cease-fires having a political base, not just a military basis is vital. and finally i think it's a very important story. the new president of indonesia's coming out better known as joe go we will be at the apec eas energy 20 meetings. there was earlier fear that he might not go to the g20. he is going and i think president obama will meet him for the first time into a bilateral i think in brisbane in australia. that should be a very important meeting great indonesia is half the population of asean. it's got half of asean's economy and i think what we are going to see folks is a much more, may be nuanced and may have

characteristics which are nuanced and indirect but i think the indonesians are going to play a big role in areas like foreign-policy and national security concerns at the east asia summit and in asia generally under the five-year term. and coming to that i think one thing you will see out of the east asia and u.s. asean summit is a growing determination to stand up to china as a maritime security threat that china has and might mike mentioned that he's correct that the chinese have not left their foot off the gas on the south china sea. rhetoric from china on a code of conduct is really the best way to look at this is like the charlie brown cartoon where china would be lucy holding the

football and asean is charlie brown trying to take it every time in the football is the code of conduct. the chinese are holding it saying we are serious this time, come on kick it and they pull it back every time. i think asean really wants the united states to continue its role putting this on the agenda talking about it and we see increased asean cohesiveness behind the south china sea issues. there's also a quiet determination in the southeast asian countries despite many of them joining the asean infrastructure investment bank rate for the united states not to defensive on these economic issues, think the united states has been put into that sort of reactive mode on asian infrastructure investment banks and also on the free trade area of the asia-pacific.

the way to get around this is to play offense. i think what we haven't seen from all the good things from this white house we have not seen comprehensive economic strategy in east asia. it's not hard to put in place. you have all the pillars of it right but if they can get their act together and articulate a strategy i think southeast asia and the rest of asia will be game for that and they are very much interested in not having a sino-centric order economic integration where god forbid political integration in asia. so thank you very much. >> we are going to wrap up with steve morris -- steve morrison ahead of our global health program at csis and then we'll open it up to questions. the media please use microphon

microphones. those on the periphery will pass around a microphone if you can identify yourself i would be very helpful. >> thank you and andrea thank you very much for putting this all together good point that i'm going to speak briefly about our mission that we had to myanmar recently in late august but before that a few words about ebola. the president yesterday announced a $6.1 billion supplemental for ebola. the majority of that money from overseas purposes both in west africa and in support of the broader global health security agenda. that's a lot of money. it is planned with the isis request and clearly it's something that is going to have to be negotiated carefully with congress and it may carry a price tag in terms of compromise on travel bans and going out to asia raising the issues of

getting others to do more. we have been the lead power in the response with a billion dollar plus commitment on both the military and civilian side. this steps up the game significantly. we cannot do this alone. others have come to the table. the u.k., the world bank, the ec and others but the response from other parts of the world and other major powers has been very paltry and is despite a very aggressive diplomacy led by ambassador nancy powell john kerry and others. australia announce a 24 million-dollar commitment just recently following the announcement of the travel ban which was itself quite controversial. china is the exception within the region in terms of its response. announce up to $200 million in

commitments. supplying several hundred health workers and is making the case that has special capacity and experiences dating back to sars and the flu response. most of its efforts are concentrated in sierra leone for u.s. responses are concentrated in liberia. this is a very welcome positive development to have the chinese making a commitment of this kind for multiple reasons. the region itself is alive to the threat of ebola. you will see in terms of intensified scanning at airports and other points of entry. you'll see this. the region is really quite a line to the threat and this has changed significantly in the last six weeks. i will try to minimize any other redundancy with ernie's comments which i completely agree with you that delegation we took out in august to myanmar a follow-on to an earlier mission a year

previous on health. this is the one we did jointly with the southeast asian studi studies. murray hebert who i focus here was the coleader of that. we went out there really prompted by what we saw as the hardening of attitudes here in washington away from a forward-leaning optimism towards, moving toward harder to negative conclusions that things were regressing or stalled. we framed around that question in which direction are things going. we put a focus on the governance issues around elections and constitutional reform around the peace negotiations with the ethnic states in the development agenda with a special focus on health. congress is moving to be more aggressive and impose greater restrictions legislatively. the opinion climate has hardened and that's something the president has to deal with.

in terms of our impression the electoral season is fully upon folks in myanmar. you will see that this has become an overriding prism. there's a lot of excitement and a lot of interest. there is a lot in play. we don't know what's going to happen in terms of these constitutional provisions that ernie pointed to and what will ultimately be the calculus of hong su chi. on the cease-fire negotiations in august there was a commitment towards federalism as a goal and towards long-term negotiations on the political agenda. there has been further bad news around that which we detail in a report. so it's back and forth and still hard to draw conclusions. on the health agenda what's remarkable is you have major interests. the global fund, the world bank,

the usg using its role, the u. u.k.. a long-term basis to facilitate the reform of that sector and major dances and as we detail in this report they are beginning to show substantial gains. but they are making those calculations on the three to five year timeframe. it is key and the notion that there's a government to work within their partners to work with. the environment is stable and international relations and ngos and others can move ahead. related to that on health health with the group focus on resistant malaria. that may sound like a technical issue but in fact it's a threat to disable the therapy that axis globally right now in control of larry. there is an enormous amount of activity underway right now to begin to combat bad. we put quite a bit of detail and

emphasis on us through the military said to be brought into the equation. the global fund has done a remarkable job in putting resources then. ernie mentioned during our visit where he spent time talking to the parties to this both government and others it was a fairly brutal assault back in march upon msf and the u.n.. the state and federal union authority pretty much abdicated responsibility and stood back while that happen and now there is a process of trying to repair the damage. the prize -- president has put special emphasis on this emphasis on this in the congress has put special emphasis on this. it is a problem that's terribly difficult to reconcile and move forward and it's not going to be fixed tomorrow but it's something we can't turn away from nor have we. i think the u.s. embassy and ambassador mitchell has done a sterling job at putting a stake

in the ground standing up to this abuse and is insisting on holding the government to account for it and i think it deserves an enormous amount of credit on that. i won't go into detail about the land grabs and crackdown on journalists but it's in the report. on the big issues around the constitutional matters and the electoral preparations and the like just stay tuned here. our view is the u.s. has struck a middle path of being engaged with being cautious and continuing to call out those areas that are most problematic. the u.s. engagement there draws broad and wide support across the political spectrum. we have been able to navigate as the country a very difficult and politicized environment could i mentioned about were kind and

continue to push that through an electoral pc which will be this central prism leading into 2015. ndi rdi and ice -- we put the spotlight on that uncalled for stepping up that effort in specific ways print on the health we applaud what has happened and called for doubling of the u.s. bilateral engagements and continued strong support around the global front and the world bank. just in closing we need to be realistic around u.s. leverage. we need to be realistic around this complex transition. we should not rush to judgment around making headline conclusions and categorical conclusions about where things are and where they are going to be in a year because i don't think that's particularly if proven way to judge something that's obligated. thank you very much. >> we are going to open up to

questions in first i'm going to go to george carman. >> thanks. two questions. when he talks about some specific things on u.s.-china relations. how would you characterize the overall state of the relationship and secondly what world is this election play? you mentioned the little things but how much is the region and the regional leaders paid attention to the u.s. election and this guy that they once saw as a rock star do they seem as a weak lame-duck? does he have to prove to them that he is still a leader on this front? >> i think the chinese community in washington have been surprised that she shinki as a leader has been less accommodating and tougher than expected. i sang in beijing one hears now is talks like dawn and acts like

now. and the expectation was that simultaneous pressure against india and japan and the asean countries cyber attacks this would lead to a natural pushback and indeed as ernie said for asean there has been an amount of pushback with what's been surprising is it hasn't appeared to be two and a calibration and chinese foreign-policy. so i would characterize the u.s. china relationship as one that is not in a downward spiral but one where a heightened level of tension -- and the challenge for the president is to continue framing the relationship in a win-win way because this matter and others have said broad

economic issues management at north korea and regional integration were still -- it's noteworthy that china is hosting a plan specific grouping and putting enormous effort into it. not in apec summit to push the u.s. out. quite the contrary china wants to accelerate movement on the free trade pacific which would include all the apec members chile and canada and so forth. the reason we mistreat others are saying no is because it's too fast. we have to get tpb down to the congress for two reasons. one is to set rules before we get into negotiations with china and the second is congress can't digest a trade agreement that includes china. we are slowing china down but in some ways china's major theme is more integration. the overall context is not one

of downward spiraling hostility but the level attended -- attention is higher. this biannual survey of american views of the world, 49% of americans say u.s.-china relations are quite pretty than three of americans didn't have an opinion. >> i would say via a rock star or lame-duck the hope is that comment i think the narratives among a lot of the elites including leaders is that president obama has the asia engagement dna in his blood. it's what he wants to do but he has been sort of hijacked by domestic politics and his elections in the united states and now he may be able to turn

to asia for his legacy -- legacy issues. but the guy wanted himself as self prophecy as i will be the first president of the united states. he speaks indonesia. he was born in hawaii and broken in the nation for the southeast asians they do hope that this is the guy who can help talk to americans and set a foundational understanding among not just politicians but among americans that asia is vital to the future of ourselves, our kids and not only are jobs that our security. i think that's the hope so they're still have hope they are that because he lost the election but that is what he will have to accommodate them work for their publicans, do trade and start to talk to americans about asia. >> is one to make sure i got one fact right. 48% cooperative and 48

adversarial. i think i said it the other way around. >> it sounds like there's almost a touch of imprints between u.s. and china. you mentioned asean was welcoming american engagement and american pushback and china in the south china sea that are there divisions and which countries in the grouping are leading more towards china. cambodia was one in the sinai perhaps? >> i think it's a fair question. from asean's point of view we have to remember balance over everything. balance in everything. if it was the americans that were playing complete offense we had all the ideas in china was on its back foot. they would be demand for chinese engagement from the asean so we have to be careful about understanding that. but right now we have a historic

window in united states. it's the three a's. obama has added and australia pulling for him, pulling for more u.s. engagement is abe in japan and asean. everyone is lined up and want to see the americans playing offense in asia. because of the proximity the geographical proximity of china because of china's this disconnect between china's rhetoric what china's rhetoric was as a wants wants to do and what it's actually doing on and under the seas that worries the asean and quite frankly they wanted off. they want china to feel safe and secure and be economically successful so that they can share in the success that they want the americans also to be economically engaged in successful and deeply engaged on a security basis of china doesn't use its newfound economic might to impose its own

definitions of sovereignty. [inaudible] >> personally i think gideon this is overplayed. i talked to the cambodians a year and a half ago. you guys misunderstand where we are on china. we want the americans to be engaged and it sounded like every other asean later to me. now in practice this foreign minister has been off the reservation on that front. and that's being very kind to speak as the cameras are rolling but i actually don't think it's particularly useful in the spectrum of the asean countries with respect to this. >> kristen. >> thank you very much. >> thank you.

what should president obama's message beyond hong kong? obviously a lot of americans watch the pro-democracy protesters and there has been a lot of interest in that. i'll find of the line does he need to walk and also in terms of the constitution and myanmar is it realistic to think that it can change before the elections and what specifically would have to happen? what does that process look like? thank you. >> on hong kong there is concern in the administration because within the chinese media and government circles their accusations that the united states is the evil hand behind the protests. my recommendation would be don't worry about that, that the president should speak out clearly in support of what these people in hong kong are asking for and i think there are ways to wrap it in language that is

good for china's development in good for china's relations with other parts of asia or across the straits and so forth. as margaret thatcher i say this is no time to be wobbly and judging from secretary kerry speech i think that's where they're coming down. it's always harder to do that when you are in beijing and you don't control the media environment. secretary kerry was saying this and i remember traveling with president bush and trying to think about how to talk about these issues in beijing. but he did and he found ways to talk about religious freedom and other issues but to frame it in terms of what's in china's interest ultimately. >> if i could just maybe-the two together. i sure hope mike is right. i think the americans have to talk about this. the president has to talk about this because if you look around

asia there's a lot of analysis going around that democracy is being stepped back. i think that's absolutely wrong and i think if you look at the two events that are happening at the same time the democracy protests in hong kong and joko wi rising out of nowhere not part of any political party, now part of a sign of a great intonation wealthy family. where do you think asia is going and i will tell you i think southeast asia notwithstanding i think we just have sort of a bubble going on in thailand is moving forward. middle class him in the empowered middle class is going to move forward and they want to hear president obama supporting this kind of event. on myanmar i will ask steve to punt on the ground but that's a very good question. it is legally possible.

there is time to change the constitution. politically it's very hard to see how that could happen so it would be extraordinary and i think part of what the white house is trying to manage right now it's almost impossible to get that done before the elections and partly because the elections are coming and so if it doesn't happen i think what we should be worried about is throwing the baby out with the bathwater and saying okay well myanmar's economic and political reformists failed because they didn't get across the line. i personally haven't spent a lot of time for a fair amount of time in myanmar and quality time with ang san suu kyi. she didn't say this but i felt like, thought there was an understanding there that she wants this change before the election.

i think there is this determination to continue to fight and maybe if her party wins i thought she thought there was room to get enough votes potentially to make changes after winning at controlling the parliament. speak we detail and in here there are two provisions that play. one provision within the constitution is the one that bars her because of citizenship issues and the second provision around the set-aside of 25% of parliamentary seats in the military. most of the debate within the constitutional committee of parliament has centered around this. i agree entirely with ernie. i think this signals a pretty clear that we are not going to see in the run up to 2015, the odds of seeing resolution the first of those two are the second to open the process sufficiently where there's a clear shot at full victory those

odds are low. we face a predicament here which is first of all she and the opposition have to make an internal calculation at some point in time about how much do they lean in and play and how much do they lean back and not play. those determinations have not been made yet that the u.s. government faces a broader predicament of trying. how to read reach judgment on what is free and fair and what happens in 2015, if it doesn't include those major reforms and an opportunity to have a full run at possible victory. i think that is what hernias getting at. beyond those 2015 elections there's a real question of what is the u.s. approach and what's good enough for what sufficient to be able to continue. the election outcome is going to determine i think a great deal of what our bilateral relationship looks like those 2015.

>> i would fault the administration. there was high-level engagement. secretary clinton took a risk on this policy issue. kurt campbell and others at senior levels. they achieved an important historic shift. the white house chalked it up as one of the signature achievements of the pivot and then except for our friend and alumni, alumnus derek mitchell in rangoon senior officials from the state department and white house dropped this. now the present and i'm not threatened a civil engagement. i'm talking about singing senior u.s. officials very think they just put this on the scoreboard and they dropped it and now they are scrambling and they're probably should have been a higher level of sustained engagement not just to turn the corner with myanmar but to make sure we were engaging at high levels to make sure we didn't hit the difficulties we are

having now. i'm not sure we could have were ang san suu kyi could have achieved a full free election in 2015 but if you look at the range of issues we would have benefited from more high-level engagement over the last two years than we have. >> thank you. heather with market international. you mentioned that the imf for reform is jeopardizing u.s. leadership in the region. can you give us examples of what that is costing the u.s. and the failure to pass every form and also you said the u.s. needs a conference of strategy on the asean. they have the pillars that don't have the full strategy. can you explain more what you mean and what that would look like? >> the imf quota reform is was something that the u.s. champion in 2010 at the korea summit of

the g20 and it pushed it because it recognized the imf to continue to be a effective institution of global economic governance, the ability to do surveillance and monitoring and economic policies and just to make loans where necessary it needed to address the so-called shares and shares in balance of governance in the institution itself. so it pushed this agreement. everybody agreed. everybody has implemented it in the u.s. has failed to implement it because of congresses unwillingness to approve a minor -- there is a budget tor tory -- but it's mainly a transfer money that was committed to another pot. i think that is had tremendously

damaging implications for the imf effectiveness in the united states ability to sway others on the imf related issues or broader growth issues within the g20 and specifically it said the frustration of the large emerging of the economy that want more voice in the global economic governance and i think you can draw a line from this failure the u.s. to follow through on this commitment directly to the established than of infrastructure bank which may end up being useful pieces of the architecture depending on how they end up being governed and being run but i think in terms of if the u.s. has an interest in supporting the best elements of the bretton woods system that helped champion in 1944 than it needs to follow through and do this reform. i'm certainly hopeful that in

the new congress this will be taken up and pass quickly because it's getting in a way of a lot of things we are trying to do in the region. >> if i can follow-up on that is there an economic trade impact as well spilling over as well? >> in a broad sense yes i think it's affecting her ability to be a champion of the rules-based or that we are trying to update them all pulled. for example of the ppp. i think it specifically comes up in negotiations or as an optical and agreement on say enterprise reform or whatever but i think at a broad sense it does affect u.s. credibility and effectiveness. >> what i meant is we have got important pillars in place. tpp for instance is not a u.s. strategy for engagement in asia economically. it's an important pillar. if we get that it would have set a high-level rules-based model

that others could dock into. we need to do that but we are failing to do is articulate a broader connect the dots basically, to connect the dots of the tpp bilateral investment treaties are negotiated and have negotiated free trade with australia korea and singapore. what we need to do is articulate over the tpp a vision for why asia is important to americans and what our strategy is to make sure that we are not only deeply a part of which we are but that we are driving this rules-based order of how asia will be structured and how it will integrate. we have all the pieces in place. we have to sort of talk to what we think and i think once we do that we will be in better shape.

>> i agree with all of that but let me say in. the tpp strategy was designed to incentivize a growing group of asia-pacific economies to join this updated rules-based system, 21st century rules-based system and it is actually worked in the sense that it started with five countries and its now 12. when japan joined china immediately took a renewed interest in tpp. they have been looking at tpp is a former containment or exclusion trying to attempt to exclude china from regional economic affairs. when japan joined china understood this was a strategy of trying to draw china and others into this global rules-based order in the respect say that is while i agree with ernie do we need a broader framing because it's not just about tpp the recent tpp is so important is that it is designed