subcommittee, thank you for inviting me here today to testify. i am the chief executive officer and president of delphi automotive. first and foremost, on behalf of myphi, i want to express profound sympathies to the victims and their families. people were hurt and lives were lost. we must work together to avoid tragedies of this nature going forward. the subcommittee's work is an important part of that effort. members of the subcommittee, i appreciate the opportunity to address the important issues that you're considering. we fully support your efforts. i would like to discuss three main points. first, delphi's efforts to provide replacement parts and support general motors in connection with the recall. with theur cooperation

subcommittee and other governmental bodies as well as gm am in third the review and reinforcement of delphi's safety policies and procedures. my first point, i would like to provide some information pertaining to delphi postured a reduction of replacement parts for general motors. the vehicles that were recalled were not in production several years ago. as a result it has been a monument task to build over 2 million switches in a matter of months. we have installed three new production lines and trained additional workers. at this time we have shipped over one million new switches and we're on track to deliver more than 2 million switches by the end of august. we have done all this so that consumers can have their vehicles repaired by general motors as quickly as possible. a second point is that delphi fully supports the subcommittee's efforts as well as those of the house energy and commerce committee and other

governmental bodies. our support has included conducting an exhaustive review and providing relevant documents and meeting multiple times with the subcommittee and federal agencies. in addition, we have cooperated with general motors in the recall and its investigation and our cooperation includes entering into a reciprocal document sharing agreement and we have provided relevant documents and of course with that agreement. , we have conducted a thorough review of our current policies and procedures related to product safety which we believe are robust and which we are continuously working to improve. for example, and at my direction, we have reinforced our global engineering team on the importance of raising safety concerns so that they can be handled roughly. we have strengthened our procedures to ensure that safety

concerns are communicated across all relevant functions within our company, and that includes reports to our senior management and to our customers. we are committed to acting upon all such concerns in a timely manner. the industry has created a new standard to focus on how these complex safety systems work together instead of looking at safety on a part by part basis. we support this new standard and given what we have learned from these tragedies, the new standard should be very helpful going forward. a written statement provides additional details and i will be pleased to address any questions you may have. again, thank you for this opportunity to testify today. -- mr.k you, mr. of deal o'neill. >> chairman mccaskill, ranking member heller and members of the committee, thank you for having me here today to testify about the cobalt ignition issues.

, generalof this year motors board asked me to determine why it took so long to recall the cobalt and other vehicles that contained the faulty ignition switch. my explicit mandate from the board was to provide an unvarnished report on how and why this occurred, pursue the facts wherever they took us, and to put those facts into a report. that is the report which we submitted to the board. general motors board also directed me to make recommendations drawn from the facts to help ensure that this did not occur again. unfettered was given access to general motors witnesses and to their documents . we interviewed more than 230 witnesses and conducted over 350 total interviews. some of those interviews lasted over two days. the collect -- we collected more

than 41 million documents, all in an effort to find out why the cobalt recall was delayed for so many years. in that research in terms of the investigation, we looked at every ceo, we looked at all of the engineers, we used search so no one was exempt from that review. i will not summarize the report, you have it. i will however note that among the issues we specifically examine are the issues that are the topic of this hearing. accountability and corporate culture. we ask questions of dozens of witnesses from top executives to line engineers about these topics. we examine the decision-making process is that related to the ignition switch issues and whether there were broad cultural issues that may have contributed to the delayed recall. the story of the cobalt is one of a series of individual and organizational failures that led

to devastating consequences. tookghout the decade it till motors to recall the cobalt, there was a lack of accountability, a lack of urgency, and a failure of company personnel charged with ensuring the safety of the company's vehicles to understand how general motors vehicles were manufactured. in our report reviewed these failures including cultural issues and that may have contributed to this problem. board'sal motors request, we provided recommendations to help ensure that this problem would never occur again. i'm happy to take your questions. thank you. >> i want to say to the committee, many members of the committee have worked very hard in preparation for this hearing. so we can try to get two rounds

of questions in before we have to leave for boats. mr. milliken, i want to spend my time on my first row with you. i want to make sure everybody understands what punitive damages are. four lawyers, that is a blinking red light. and you mr. belugas will confirm that punitive damages in our system are designed to punish corporations. conduct that is outrageous and egregious. it is a method by which justice can be done by punishing bad behavior. atattern was emerging general motors for almost a decade about these cars. there was some confusion on the part of at least one engineer. 2010, yourber of

lawyers -- this was not the plaintiff's lawyer that was out there making a frivolous lawsuit. saidlawyers that you hired you are possibly subjective -- subject to punitive damages over the way you have handled this problem in this automobile. that was in october of 2010. i believe you were general counsel been, correct? , in july 2011, your that there is a potential for punitive damages because of this factual scenario. are also general counsel then, correct question mark at that point in time, lucy clark authority in july of 2011 was general counsel for north america, correct? i believe she began in that position in march of 2011.

thinking it was 2012, but i could be wrong. 2012, anotherl of one of your outside lawyers that youur department were subject to punitive damages. which could be millions of dollars for corporation the size of general motors. factclark authority was in general counsel for north america. in april 2013, almost the same time you had the bombshell dropped on you in the definition -- in that deposition , showing the switches had been switched out, the part had been change, once again you are warned about punitive damages.

. >> as a company, that is correct. >> see you have a legal obligation -- legal obligation to report it to the securities and exchange commission. did you ever do that about this issue? andhe issue of this product the problems surrounding it, have you ever reported to the sec? .ot your legal department your legal department knew it. >> am talking about from the time i knew forward and excluding that, before that, no week have not. subsequent to that we may have made a filing with the sec about the ignition switch recall, that is correct every >> what about the legal obligation to inform the board of directors. or they were that your lagers retailing you this car was going to cause you to to damages? >> they were not given >> what about financial reserves? were you entering in the books of financial reserves necessary

to cover this liability which is your obligation as general counsel? >> we were not entering any reserves to color -- cover punitive damages, no we were not. how you andt get lucy clark authority still have your jobs. can you explain that to me? >> i think you have done a lot of good work century to go over. i think you handled this with courage and conviction. i cannot for the life of me -- this is either gross negligence or gross incompetence on the part of a lawyer, the notion that he can say i didn't know. craig senator mccaskill, i respectfully disagree. as you know, i have made a promise to fix what happened in the company to make sure that we are dedicated to safety, dedicated to excellence. we are well on our way and we have made significant change to do that -- to do that, i need the right team. might milliken is a man of

incredibly high integrity who has tremendous global experience as it relates to the legal profession. he is the person i need on this team. he had a system in place him unfortunately in this instance it wasn't brought to his attention from a frankly by people who brought many other issues forward. he is a man of high integrity. >> was there a system in place that says your lawyer is telling you your subject to punitive ?amages how is that not incompetent? she says we have our lawyer telling us for different times within a couple of years on something you had not even talked about recalling, punitive damages. how do you have a system in place it doesn't look out for that? >> we had very senior lawyers who had this information did not bring it forward who are no longer with the company. detailsnt through the of the lucas report very

carefully, and i would say when in doubt we reached further to take action, there are many lawyers that are no longer with the company to >> i think there has been a blind spot here. my time is up. think the failure of this legal department is stunning and the notion -- you look around government, when something like shinsekiens, secretary did know about those problems and canceling. nobody told him. he is gone. >> madam chair, thank you. being here today and taking the tough questions. of complete the circle here. i would like to ask you just a couple of questions regarding your products. time, soave a lot of the short of the answers, the better. the complaint as they started piling up in 2000 on your product, did delphi conduct any internal investigation to

determine whether your part was at fault? aware of thet deathson in terms of ,ntil february of this year 2014. quick so you are saying obviously not. he didn't know until february of this year. was there any reason to believe that anyone in your company may ?ave known >> in the exhaustive review we have done in our documents in talking with individuals, it was clear to the delphi team in working with the general motors team when this particular situation, we were concerned about customer satisfaction and what it cost and quality issues. >> is there possibility that any individual in your company simply did not take it to the top?

very hard,d very, and there is no evidence of that because it's quite clear the mindset was based on information that they were given. they were working on quality issues, not safety issues. >> did anyone ever raise concerns about keeping it the same with this part? quick standard protocol in our industry is that the car manufacturer may determine the part number and they control that part number. so if that part number is ever to change, the car manufacturer would dictate the change and we would automatically up rate it. next do you feel that delphi shoulders any responsibility here? me explain some important information and i think it would lead to that discussion.

a productroblem -- that we work with general motors to develop and that was the switch. that's which started with a certain set of requirements. often in development working with the customer, general motors in this case, those requirements can become more stringent. they can become less or they can stay the same. in this particular case -- i it was athe report very european-style switch. bywas ultimately approved general motors and that part met the requirements that was dictated. otherart then met with parts and became part of a subsystem called the ignition assembly. >> i hate to interrupt you but i don't have a lot of time.

product met the requirements of the customer. >> so no responsibility. >> no. >> mr. belugas, understanding was a sharing agreement with delphi. was it as forthcoming as you would have liked it to have been? do you think the limited information you receive from delphi prevented you from providing a complete report? >> no, i believe at this point having had the chance to put the extra six-month -- six weeks or month by way of what we had in materials, i think the report is complete. comfortable with the delphi aspect of it that we have that information. >> is there anything we don't know that is relevant? >> i committed and promised to an earlier committee that if we found something i would go to the board of directors. if interface anything factually so we learned that would alter it in a significant way, we would supplement the report and

i would make that commitment to this committee. right now believe that everything we could know about this issue we would put in that report or a supplemental letter. next do you feel that delphi shoulders any responsibility? deaths?13 >> i can tell you this. approved thes switch knowing that it was below pork values and that was an approval that was given to delphi, and delphi manufactured the switch in accordance with that approval. that delphilieve shoulders any responsibility for the 13 deaths? iswe are the company that responsible to integrate the parts into the vehicle so it is our responsibility. >> thank you very much. >> thank you very much, all of you. i spoke earlier about growing up

in minnesota [indiscernible] this story is not just tragic because we have constituents and because the facts are tragic. it also turns out to be an important art of mr. valu kas'report. the wisconsin state trooper conducted an investigation himself after the crash and clearly made the link between the defect is -- defective ignition switch and the failure of the airbag to deploy. he cracked the code that seem to have evaded gm engineers and lawyers for years. he wrote in his report that was in the legal files as of february 2007. he wrote "the two front seat airbags did not deploy. it appears the ignition switch

been turned to accessory prior to the collision with the tree." did you interview people about this report and did you figure out why no engineers had read it at gm? >> what happened with this report was that the report, and i believe correctly analyze the situation back as far as 2007, was collected by gm as part of into what iss put called a rumor file and at some point it was accessed by a paralegal who then sent to -- at no point did we have it frantically reviewed by outside experts. at no point was it access of 2014then and march when the investigation was undertaken. so during that time it was in those files, that rumor file, and know when i gm look at it other than back in 2007 when a

senate. it seems to me it is somewhat official and there is also an indiana university study, they were commissioned to look at the crash as well. was that also in the rumor file? next they actually did not even have that. even though is publicly available, it gm did not gather that public information. that was not something they had until 2012 when it outside expert made available as part of their report. be that you guys , you'reor seven years starting to see all these airbag non-deployment cases that nobody saw this report and looked at it ? you are seeing an example of what the report identified. file ismation flow, the not one that was searchable by the normal terms that people would use when they were looking for documents.

it's my understanding from the report, and we're doing what we can to make sure we do have this honor going forward basis. this is a tragedy that cannot happen again and i'm dedicated to making sure we make the changes we need to ensure that. panel, i dofirst appreciate you have come forward out front and set up this compensation fund. knowsaid were not going to if justice is done until we see with the outcomes are and i appreciate the work that has been done on the recall as the owner of her he gm car. one of the things mr. lucas wrote in this report, he said although everyone had responsibility to fix the problem, nobody took responsibility. he said a top executive described it as the gm not, when everyone nods in agreement to a proposed plan of action. steps have you taken to implement, to get rid

of what we call the gm nod, and how do you ensure we move from confusedure of responsibility to defined responsibility? >> in my career at general motors, and never accepted the gm not and frankly i have called people out on it. it is not appropriate. we make very complex products and it's important that all voices are heard. the way you change culture is by demonstrating the behavior, making sure people understand what your expectations are, and calling them out when they don't. i've been demonstrating that, i direct leadership team is 100% committed to that. i have talked openly about it. employeesk to all globally on june 5, after i read the report, which i found deeply troubling, i told them that and i told them that behavior was unacceptable, we were not going to tolerate it. the true change will be by

behaviors. i am intent on making sure the right behaviors continue going forward. q. >> we have a custom in this committee that when that chairman of the ranking member shows up they can cut in line. i'm going to abide by that appropriate custom and recognize the senator for his questioning. cuts that makes you really popular here, madam chairman. i appreciate it and i thank you for holding this hearing and staying on these issues. it's important that we examine the developments following this recall issue. i know you have been working very hard on this and we all share the desire to get the answers and ensure this does not happen again. minted it failed to report the safety-related defect in a timely manner and the report is called gm's delay in

addressing the ignition switch defect. as we all know these delays cost lives and i know i express my deepest sympathies to those who were injured or lost loved ones in car accidents involving gm vehicles that have now been recalled. , i welcomen i have the very public steps you have taken thus far to address the needed changes within gm, some of which you have discussed in your written testimony. i'm also reminded of statements that your immediate predecessor also discussed in his efforts to create a culture of accountability at gm following the company's bankruptcy in federal bailout. somealukas uncovered troubling findings and my in your view isn't a

sign that a cultural change has yet to take hold at gm? >> culture change happens over a long time. i would say mr. ackerson did extensive work to make sure he drove the right behavior but i think we are on a continuum of making that cultural change. the very open and transparent way we are dealing with the issue and sharing it with employees, they want to change. they want to make sure we have the right systems and processes in place. i would say mr. ackerson started on that journey and we are continuing and accelerating it. >> how do you plan to measure that change? >> on a couple of fronts, one on the very real part from a safety perspective, we've already broken down the silos and we are mining data is in using some of the latest analytic egg links to make sure information comes from across the company. we have engaged employees and

they are participating in our speak up for safety program. of choicerkplace survey every 18 months and we have seen improvements in that. that will be another key objective way to make sure we are driving the right openness. i get hundreds of e-mails from our employees on a weekly and monthly basis and they are engaged, and that to me is the best sign. is actions, not words, that will change behaviors. >> what role do you think the board of directors has in changing the culture? question role of the board is to clearly state their expectations of how they company should operate. as ceo it's my job to make sure we are living up to their expectations. valukas is based on the report. the problems were not limited to the switch as specified.

from 2001 mention quite a bit of frustration on the part of gm in dealing with these delphi switches due to electrical failures and delphi's inability to deliver parts for testing purposes. taken together, this evidence would seem to indicate a problem for greater than we were initially led to believe. now with that ignition switch, these issues have come to light, have you gone back and reviewed these concerns and determined what delphi will do in the future? >> we did go back and look extensively at all the documentation, and we found nothing that was abnormal in terms of product development. and ultimately how the problems were addressed that you sometimes run into as you move from development to production, etc..

as i said, our product has met the requirements. it injured and ignition assembly products,t had other i'm assuming the other products met their requirements, but when they come together they form a saidm and as mrs. bauer earlier, it's someone else's job to make sure that those products work in total harmony when they come together. back ande gone understood our role in that. ofhink the new legislation how safety systems interact from , and we perspective will work diligently with general motors over this issue.

>> in 2006 gm authorized a changed in the ignition switch but did not change the part number. as a supplier, is it a common practice for delphi to allow him a new factor to change apart and not change the part number? about 120,000had engineering changes and only about 40% of those actually had a part number change, so it's quite normal not to change the part number. >> do you allow the manufacturer to do the same thing? >> yes. >> my time has expired. >> thank you very much. >> thank you, madam chairman. report, when your did the legal team know about this problem? back tonk you could go their investigators, it would

have been in the range of 2007, it was called to their attention . there began an inquiry about who wasinvestigator assigned to the gm legal team. >> when did they know about the ignition switch problem? period ofloped over a time and the first time i can recall the matter was being called to their attention in some way, it may have been as early as 2009-2010. >> mr. milliken, how long have you been the chief counsel? quick since the middle of 2009. forve been with the company 37 years. >> that you were in the legal side of the company before that. >> yes sir. >> when did you first find out about these two problems? >> i first found out about the ignition switch recall situation the first week of february of

this year. >> how is that possible that nobody would have told you before the first week of february of this year? >> my information is based valukas report. there's a long time when there was not a connection made between the ignition switch problem and the non-appointment of airbags. in terms of looking at the results of the report, i think it all came together for the lawyers at the time of the milton deposition in 2013 and from that point on there was enough information in the legal staff for people to have taken action and to have caused the engineering organization to take action. tragic,.'t, that was >> give me those dates again from the time you think that enough information to take action until the time you found on with five i'm basing it

the definition in april of 2013. >> and you didn't know until february of 2014. i'm going to ask mr. valukas this as well, but with this kind of problem be allowed to happen again? what have you done to prevent those same set of circumstances from happening again? >> before any case can be , if it or taken to trial involves a fatality or serious bodily injury it has to come to me regardless of the amount of the settlement postal and i want it brought to me with full explanation of the case, with a focus on any open engineering issues, so that i have an opportunity to cause open engineering issues to be addressed if they are not being properly addressed. >> is there anyway to trigger this before you have a serious bodily injury or fidelity or lost sock -- lawsuit? it would bring to my

attention cases on a more regular basis than were brought to my attention before. >> is it your view that the changes that have been made would prevent what happened from ever happening again? >> ugly based on what i noticed taking place that the answer is yes. one of the things that is happened here is the flow of information which you are able to identify quickly enough so that the engineering department was not acting on it and going back to comments that have been made earlier, the legal department of be in a position to force that to take place. >> have employees been let go because of this? mr. milliken, have employees been let go because of this? are anythey have to >> of them challenging their dismissal? >> they are not. >> you are selling lots of cars. also recalling lots of cars. i think 25 million is the number

in the last 12 months. why would there still be so many recalls? i'm not suggesting that is necessarily a bad ink, but why's that number so high? >> will we learn what happened with the ignition switch recall, we went back and redoubled our efforts. places.d at a number of we tackled all of those. we went back extensively and looked at information we had to see if we could more quickly put together any trends. as it relates to every safety giorgio hadr. do responsibility for, we looked and assessed every single one of those. in some cases there's not even any field information to suggest there is an issue, but as we get our systems engineering analysis, if we saw that by adding an insert into a key we could make the system more robust, we did that. we are intent on being a company known for safety. this was an important step and

we will conti >> you've been watching our special look at the g.m. recall joined on the're phone by david shepardson from news.troit what's the status of the house and senate investigations? >> well, they're ongoing. case of then the house, which has said it's got issues, they're pouring through two million documents and trying to come up with proposals for new legislation. the energy and commerce committee had said he expects to introduce reform legislation year.next senator rockefeller and senator mccaskill have both introduced separate meshers to give the morenment more power, quickly to get up safe vehicles off the road and impose much

fines. so those bills are likely not to come up until early next year rolledt likely would be into a highway bill given that the current highway bill will expire next may. >> all of this as g.m. continues deal with the recall issue. a headline from the detroit news says that bar ra is sending letters to 1.9 million car owners. in those letters and why did she send it? >> well, g.m. is working overtime to try to get people to get these vehicles fixed. worldwide they recalled 2.6 million and in the u.s. roughly 2 million. fixedse vehicles they about 800,000. so in this case it's about people whoat actually ordered the parts, that thosealer actually gets vehicles fixed. some have not bothered to follow through and get those parts. remember when this issue first came to light in february and march, they didn't have any

parts, so g.m. was paying for andsands of loaner cars they're still building parts in true their supplier, running multiple lines throughout, basically 4 hours a complete thell not total production of parts until the end of october. in the meantime they have parts, people to quickly get dealerships. and this letter also advises of the more indepth website where they can get more information on what specifically with theirs individual car. >> the other issue is of course the crashesof caused by the faulty parts. kenneth feinberg in that senate showed talked about the process being opened up of last week up 100 more. where do things stand with the

filing of those claims by victims? feinbergyesterday, told me they received 212 following claims, of those 87 are for people who were in fate injuries. they have not done any approval. these are the first stage of the review, they said for the simpler claims you have a nonfatal claims, that will take about 90 days to make a determination with the fate to 180it will take up days. victim's compensation fun will accept claims through september, potentially it could be up and running through the middle of next year. a the same time there's federal court new york who is overseeing over 100 lawsuits than 1,000re plaintiffs for a variety of claims. switch related not just injuries, but also economic loss claims.

>> meanwhile the recalls go on, youheadline in a piece that coauthored, g.m. adds six recalls to record this year, largest for saturn vue. i think the total you write in far. so what is the company doing in terms of addressing additional recalls? staggering.ty here's a couple numbers to think about. industry,he u.s. auto all companies both foreign and recordc, recalled a 30.8 million vehicles. recalledtry today has about 45 million vehicles, and august.ly in so the entire industry has really shifted gears. is moving far faster to recall vehicles, in part because has said that they've changed the culture, they no look at the cost when assessing whether something should be recalled.

may, the national highway traffic safety administration imposed a record $35 million fine on g.m. for failing to recall the ignition switch vehicles in a timely fashion. g.m. hasrt of that agreed to up to three years of with the monitoring, government, which means sometimes daily phone calls to talk about what potential safety issues they have coming. way before they get to the recall stage. so you have intense government oversight and basicallynow that recalls first, asks questions later. g.m. is very quick and as a result that's why you're seeing so many campaigns. huge number just a compared to historical averages. our viewers, to can you see all the g.m. hears, andur website, c-span.org, our thanks to david shepardson, the washington bureau chief of

the detroit news. >> next tuesday our issues programming continues with a look at the i.r.s. targeting investigation of programs.ve you'll hear testimony from i.r.s. commissioner john koskinen at house and senate hearings, that's next tuesday beginning at 8:00 p.m. eastern c-span. c-span, conversations from this year's new york ideas festival. an event cohosted by the the aspennd institute. speakers include the head of hbo. to have that show -- excuse me. wrong.et your numbers >> 18. >> but do you need a massive hit

like that? >> no. this is wonderful to have something that is both a very high quality, very much on brand, and it breaks through, phenomenon, has huge back end home video attached to it. this is the other side of the coin is the most pirated show on television. response to say in that, that's the bad news. the good news is 18 million people in the united states are it legally. but that's all david, dan and george. that is mike and i believing in david and dan, listening to their vision, seeing their passion. and dan really are quintessential hauteurs, they product, they know it, they breathe it. and i think for george, whose

whole life is bit around the entrusted them with the legacy of the series voms about how special they are. >> the new york ideas festival time on c-span, eastern.t 8:00 p.m. >> now a discussion on the role termce in the mid elections, and how candidates are appealing to people of color. convention of the asian american journalists association, this is a little less than an hour.

>> welcome. welcome viewers of c-span as we discuss race in the my term beyond.s and for you viewers out there, let introduce these. we are journalists, media professionals and student as the u.s. and we've got a chapter in asia. welcome to our convention. term elections are in full swing, as we all know, arecrats and republicans fighting for control over congress. with control over the u.s. at play. particular meanwhile, the jockeying is the 2016 race for the white house. our panelists this morning will

electiong at the through the prism of race and the country's changing demographics. i'm the lead reporter for the heartland project, a special project based in nebraska to enhance coverage of communities of color and lgbt issues. i'm also a former national reporter based here in washington for the boston globe. have christine chen, she's the executive director of a.p.i. national nonpartisan group that works to engage asian and pacific islanders in the electoral process. nakamura, he covers president obama and the white house for the "washington post," he's also a former president of the washington d.c. chapter. michelle, on the general news desk for the associated press in washington.

the number of whites is falling, now accounting for about 62%. to our's the back drop discussion. so we'll have about 40 minutes time for save some some questions from the audience, and we're hoping to in ae the panelists conversation. so please feel pretty energetic, questions of each other.

but we'll save the questions the end ofests until the program. but bill, let's start off with you. overview, first of all, of what's happened so far in the mid term elections, and between democrats and republicans might mean for toues of particular interest communities of color, please. >> the mid term election isn't until november, but we've had some pro found changes in congress, particularly in the house of lettives. had a major change in the house with eric cantor losing virginia primary race, which he lost his majority leader position, actually he stepped majority leader position. then later on left the congress. so that was one of the biggest changes. other than that, the house will likely remain in control by republicans. electionstion for the really is in the senate, where

you have a bunch of jockeying, you've got open seats created by retirements, particularly of key like rockefeller in west virginia, carl levin in michigan, max baucus who went onto become president obama's ambassador to china. are open seats and create republicans. for for the republicans to gain control of the senate they have net gain of six seats. right now polls indicate about races are considered currently. so there are some openings there as well. it's not going to be easy. they have not won a net gain of six seats in years, i think it maybe 1980.o but they have some advantages in states the states are

the president lost. 2012. they're making the race a referendum on president obama both on domestic policy and foreign policy. there's been a lot of stuff in situationbout overseas in syria, in iraq.istan, in his poll numbers are going down. and republicans see opportunity with his down poll numbers. so it looks like it could be in the republican direction. you can never say never in an election because things have a of happening last minute. are feelingans relatively confident, particularly some republicans in the senate who survived what thought were going to be difficult primary challenges. you had cochran in mississippi ferocioused a pretty tea party supported challenge, and it came down to a runoff, came down to cochran

having to court the black vote, differencethe major in his race. so that saved his senate prospects. you've got mitch mcconnell who would be the senate majority wins his race in november. his race is considered by some polls to be a tossup. so he could, he might not be the leader because he might not be in the senate. he's well funded, he's a very savvy campaigner and is well organized. losinglikelihood of him justt could happen, we'll put it that way. but he's a fierce campaigner and a very strong campaigner. got aat said, he's democratic challenger who is making him work for it. roberts in kansas, just reasonly survived a primary challenge. people were taking tom task for maybe not spending enough time his state.

so you have all these balls in the air right now in the senate. like i said, it's trending towards republicans, but anything can happen. some races the people thought were going to be closer right now, democrats are breathing a little easier. al franken in minnesota has a challenge, his numbers are looking better. udall in colorado has a difficult challenge, he was thought to be one of the more endangered democrats in polls, trending a little better. a tough race is north carolina hagan, she's in a very difficult race, a challenging race in north carolina. president obama lost north carolina. the democratic party recently is infusing her race with cash, i $9 million. so that's a race that the fiercely are defending. louisiana facein is a difficult race, she's been

campaigning very hard on what she delivers to her state, hoping that she can avoid losing or if she doesn't of other 50% in november runoff later in december. so what does this translate to in issues concerning people of color? you've got a couple things going on in these races. you've got some members of the republican party who were courting the african-american vote and the actively.ote, rather have a concerted effort by the r. n. c. to court the african-american vote. is a legacy of the 2012 race when they did a postmortem found that their numbers african-americans, obama got 96% of the black vote and their numbers with hispanics were rather disappointing. so they're making a hard effort to court that. on the african-american side,

not necessarily to win the african-american vote, that's a solid democratic block. like i said, the president got it 6% -- 96% of the vote in 2012. but if they can cut into that could make things difficult for candidates at the margins in close races. hispanic vote it's a built more complicated. you have an instance where the party is divided on immigration. the partyrs of support comprehensive immigration reform. some members don't. getting a mixed that voters are finding difficult to decipher. is the pie they have to slice up and where it leads in will be interesting to see, because these issues, issues at play in people ofhat affect color. you've got the voting right act.

last summercourt issued a ruling which crippled some segments of the voting that has to be addressed. bills in congress to act.he voting rights eric cantor wanted to have that the end ofe floor by the year. he's no longer majority leader, no longer in congress. bills have moved nowhere in the house or the senate. some republicans in congress what the supreme court did with the voting right act is fine. some democrats are reluctant to well.nto it as so that needs to an dressed. immigration reform is still up in the air. it's unclear whether or not that will an dressed this year, it's will anwhether that dressed in 2016. it's a very, very hot political that is just no one

knows where it's going to go right now. everyone agrees it's going nowhere. so with that, i will take it to my white house colleague for his stunning overview. >> let's move over to the white back atet's take a look what president obama delivered for communities of color. what are some of his key successes and failures, after all he is the first president of color, and who knows when we might have another one in the white house. for them?iver >> first i'd like to say we're all breaking the cardinal rule of washington d.c. in august is not talk about politics. we're supposed to be on it's my luck that -- i'll try to keep it short. question that you're asking. just to follow up on bill, just housey, the white recognizes the challenges right now. they're well aware of the danger the senate, losing it would make president obama's life much more difficult, if you can believe it. it's not like a lot of stuff was

getting down in washington to with, but it would be harder. they don want to ledge slay, they just want to make life difficult. they're the bad guys, we're the good guys, that's the argument here hearing. i was just thinking yesterday i asked at the office, i was busy on a story about whether obama had addressed what's going on in ferguson, enough, directly whether african-american communities believe the president had felt the pain on in their community. it's a question that comes up repeatedly with this president. communities, but especially the african-american community, the support is very strong the danger for the president is to let down some of those hopes. he did cannot yesterday and address in a way what is happening in missouri. he did not talk about race to correctly. he did address the need for

society to come together and justice to be done in that community. when you look back at the legacy of this president, they would say they took over a country that had a lot of problems. the economy, two wars, and that is what they had to address off the bat. it is what the president says he has accomplished maybe foremost for african-americans and other groups. the economy has improved, in some ways. the president has done a lot to make that a part of his first-term agenda. they recognize there are still a lot of waste to go, jobless numbers coming down. there is still frustration in the communities that the job remains higher, much higher for african-americans and other groups. hispanic voters -- 70% voted in favor of the president during the same with asian communities in 2012, really hurting the romney campaign.

at least for hispanics, they believe the president would do something on immigration. [indiscernible] immigration is a big one. our latest poll in "the washington post" shows the hispanic party very frustrated with both parties for immigration. they believe the democrats have not come through. the president will talk about health care as being something else he did. hispanics believe the president -- he pushed it hard on his second term. our latest polls show hispanic'' approval rating dropped to 54%. the president's ratings have plummeted across the board. that is twice as high as the

overall average grade that is a big statement -- average. that is a big statement. the president is going to announce a major effort on immigration through executive action. democrats, there are some concerns that immigration will not play well in the 2014 campaign. a lot of states bill talked about do not have a lot of hispanic or asian voters who care a lot about this issue. the president will probably go forward with this right before the election. democrats hope it will inspire

progressives to come out. overall support for the president remains strong. minorities in particular have an even higher bar for this resident. he still needs to match it, particularly in some instances with hispanics and others, he still has interesting decisions to make about how he will be seen in his legacy going forward. >> let's move on to michele. we are talking about a lot of our immigration here. the latino voters are the big prize for both parties. latino voters are expressing disappointment over the fact that immigration -- changes in immigration policy has not happened. how do democrats get them back in, and how do republicans make stronger inroads to the latino

vote? >> thank you for inviting me. it's great to see such a terrific turnout this morning. i think there are a couple of things happening, and it has to do with the fact that there is a big slice of latinos that are certainly up for grabs. it is not a coincidence that this is a swing demographic. supported george bush 40% in 2004, then swung over to obama in the 70% area for 2012. both parties are making a concerted effort. what the midterm elections are all about is going to be turnout, and whether latinos are going to turn out for the midterm election. there are not a lot of races where latinos are going to make a difference, and that adds to the frustration in no small measure because of the way the districts were redrawn after the 2010 census.

some groups are challenging that very there is a challenge going on right now in florida to redraw some of those districts. whether in fact they will impact the midterms clearly remains to be seen. the frustration among latinos is very high over immigration, and also the way the central american children are being treated. the rhetoric that is going on, the bill that passed the house, which stripped out $3 million or $4 million for legal representation for these children, many of whom are applying for asylum. there are very few resources available for attorneys, and there is not going to be any more coming.

the process -- the republicans voted to expedite the process. as rnc growth and opportunity, both for 2013 which was the so-called autopsy done after the republicans -- after romney's loss in the 2012 election said, quoting, if a hispanic american perceives that a gop candidate does not want them in the united states, for example, it will not pay attention to our next sentence. it does not matter what we say about education, jobs, or the

economy if hispanics think that we do not want them here. you have this dichotomy going on. you have congress sending this clear message, we don't want them here, then we have the libre initiative, an organization being funded by the koch brothers, who also founded a number of conservative causes, who are trying to make inroads into the latino communities in several targeted states in order to bring them over to the republican party and get them to embrace conservative causes. latinos are fiscally liberal, but they want the government -- they want to know the government is there to help them if it is needed. at the same time, they are socially conservative.

hence the swing voting, depending on where the candidates come down in the spectrum on which issues. with all of that said, it may very well be that for the democrats, there really hasn't anything been done on immigration. they need that turnout in order to retain the seats they have and not lose any more ground in the senate. however, the 2010 trend for hispanic voter turnout actually increased. if that trend continues, there is possibility that they could -- the turnout would increase, and they could have an impact. with that said, we're only

talking about an increase of 3% in 2010. we will see how that impacts. that goes against a presidential trend where the rates of latinos voting actually declined between 2008 and 2012. we will see what happens in 2016. >> we have christine chen, the executive director of api vote, a national nonpartisan group that works to engage asian americans and pacific islanders in the electoral process. christine, you are looking at this from a different point of view. you are looking at it from the ground up. you're part of the grassroots network trying to engage voters out there.

if you might be able to describe how difficult it might be these days to get people engaged. >> for the asian american, pacific islander community, two thirds of their community are first-generation immigrants. not only are they learning this new process, we are also seeing a lot more barriers as election laws and voting rights laws change in each of the specific states. as that continues to change, there needs to be more outreach into the community in regard to the basics as far as, how do you make sure you get registered. let alone, the whole idea about motivation and the frustration that the asian american pacific islander community has in regard to immigration still being stalled. for us, family reunification for the community has been a top priority. we saw that in our 2012

postelection polling as well as pre-election polling as well. >> do you think that the news media, your fellow panelists, are they doing enough to engage people and are they writing about the issues and concerns that will get them to the polls? pick on them individually. [laughter] >> with dave, i actually knew him back in the day, when he was a "washington post" beat reporter. we address the whole issue about a headline called [indiscernible] for me, some of the relationships have been long-standing. there still needs to be a lot more work that we do in this industry to include api stories in the greater context. whether it is immigration, discussions, in terms of the coverage of the elections -- one of our frustrations throughout the years is that we are all safe -- always missing in the data.

in 2012, a number of organizations put in resources to conduct our own polling. without some of that data, there would be no news coverage. >> in 2012, asian americans, despite our low numbers overall, actually made a difference in two battleground states. in fact, a lot of newsrooms, including mine, did not do any stories until after the fact. how do you think, switching back to an earlier question i asked, how do you think the white house and this president of color -- how well has he done, addressing the concerns of the aapi

communities, african-american communities, and latinos? >> symbolically, it really has shed light to our community in terms of being able to feel that person of color and one of us could serve as president or serve our country in a variety of ways. he has done a great job in terms of appointments. the first term he was able to appoint three asian-american pacific islanders to the cabinet. we currently have zero. that is the first time in over a decade where we actually don't have aapi represented in the cabinet itself. when he first started, there was only eight on the federal bench and he has tripled to 25. there continues to be frustration in regards to immigration.

in terms of staffing, it has been a lot more positive. the white house initiative on asian-american pacific islanders was an initiative that was renewed by the president, and expanded their jurisdiction where in the past, it was only focused on small businesses and economics, but now it has been expanded to a wide range of agencies all across. >> the president has roots in asia, in the asia-pacific. [inaudible] [laughter] he has roots in hawaii. in addition to other things, i cover what the resident calls the pivot to asia. he talks about the place of asia as something that is important to him. he is trying to do this thing

where they shift the foreign policy away from the middle east and europe to asia as part of [inaudible] he has a lot of interest in that. that is not necessarily register among asian-americans. i think it was a story that i quoted you in -- i was a reporter in loudoun county, virginia, "washington post" -- 1998, i guess. olympics were going on and i covered education. if i remember, you were head of the chinese -- [inaudible] we did a story. the editors had no idea what i was talking about. i ended up running it. they did not edit a word of it.

[indiscernible] >> you also knew your demographics. now we look at for genia, loudoun county -- virginia, loudoun county. the electorate represents a 14%. there is a growing population there. >> immigration -- there is 11 million-plus undocumented immigrants -- i think a million of those are of asian descent. the latino community is interested in the -- the undocumented population is huge. there are huge waiting lists in asia to come here. the philippines may have a 20 year wait list. when i covered immigration out of the white house, i get a lot of stories about the latino

point of view. i started calling up asian groups involved in this and ended up having a big story that they cared about something else, which was this legal immigration system. most of the debate was to move it away from what asians cared about, reduce some of that and put it on business visas and get them on board. it became a big issue with asian groups. >> [indiscernible] just overstay their visas, never came back. i want to go back to something bill had mentioned earlier. you said he had to reach out to the black population. mississippi is considered one of the most -- >> it has history.

because his race was tight, the cochrane campaign with the help of establishing the republican chair in d.c. made a concerted effort to reach out to african-american voters who responded -- >> but how? how do you talk to people who have not trusted an entire party for so long? how do you get them back? >> i think the carrot was, look at the guy cochrane is running against. >> true. >> apparently that was enough. did not like cochrane's opponent. they saw -- some african-americans saw what they saw in the 1960's in the opponent. after cochrane had won, you're still getting some blowback that some group said the election was stolen.

the opponent said he wanted to have an investigation for voter fraud. the rules of the election permitted african-americans who were mostly democratics to vote in that primary, and they did. they felt they voted their interests. that was a motivating factor. will that translate to other republican races? unclear. this was a unique situation that happened in mississippi. it could happen in other states. the african-american community new cochrane -- knew cochran. african-americans overwhelmingly vote democratic. you have some instances in some states where they might like their republican congressman or

their republican senator. it is not unusual in a state race or a senate race to have a republican that has african-american voters. african-americans are not a monolith. you mentioned hispanics are fiscally liberal and socially conservative. african-americans could almost be seen in the same light, which also has appeal for the republican party. if you look at the legislative history, remember that african-americans voted for

george wallace in his later days. african-americans voted for strom thurmond in his later days. it happens. this was different. it was unusual, but not unique. >> we are also seeing some similar tactics being used in other races, for example, the republican candidate in illinois is targeting african-americans a way cochrane did in mississippi, and also tim scott is targeting latinos in florida in an attempt to reach the governor's mansion. picking a few off here and there, and they add up to big numbers, which is the obama strategy. >> prince reavis has made a concerted effort to [indiscernible] american voters. they have people who go into states and train republican candidates to interact with african-american voters, to go

into african-american churches, to learn how to ask for that vote. they realize they are not going to get -- they will not win the african-american vote, but if you can pick off a few -- the perfect example would be the bush campaign in 2004. i forget what his overall african-american numbers were. i believe he got 14% of the african-american vote in ohio, which was a deciding state, and the reason why he got such a high african-american vote in ohio was that i believe at that time there was a gay marriage referendum. it goes into the african-american conservatism at that time.

you had a bunch of gay marriage referendums on the ballot in several states in that election year. it worked very effectively in ohio. >> i know since 2012, our organization has been contacted or a much by the rnc. they have been asking for information, data, and in terms of the issues that we care about and where our communities are organizing. i also view it as, they also have a lot more to go. they just started to higher and asian-american staffer right after 2012, while the democrats for over a decade they have always had a staffer at the dnc. in terms of political pacts or organizationally where there are staffers of asian-american descent working on the different campaigns, the democrats have a long list of resumes and folks that they can tap into versus the republicans are just now starting to build that. ultimately, it is also going to be about the issues and how they address that and where they vote in terms of representing our communities. there is hope in terms of the aapi, because 47% of our community does not necessarily identify as democrat or

republican or conservative or progressive. once again, the democrats right now, for those who do identify with a party, they have a 2-1 edge -- >> but there has been a strong trend towards democrats. the republicans in georgia age. bush, he won the asian vote. now, we are talking about three fourths of the asian vote for obama. michelle, we have got two high-profile senators who are ambassadors. we're talking about ted cruz out of texas and marco rubio over in florida.

you would have thought that their ascension would have perhaps translated to more votes from the latino community. >> no, it hasn't happened and is unlikely to happen. marco rubio's numbers among latinos are very poor. as the african-american community, it's not monolithic, neither is the latino community. we come from 23 countries throughout latin america and the caribbean. some of us have strong ties to the united states because we have been here for six and seven and eight generations. some of us got here 10 minutes ago. some of us are fluent in english. some of us speak no spanish. some of us are bilingual. some of us are monocultural from our native countries. some of us are 110% u.s. because we speak in bush, we are american, we have assimilated. that is the spectrum you are dealing with.

that is the spectrum that marketers are trying to figure out how to attract. our buying power is in the trillions. we are a force. but right now we are very fragmented, and it looks like we will be that way for quite some time here in ted cruz and marco rubio, who are both cuban, have a very, very different experience than most of the latinos in this country. most of the latinos in this country are of mexican origin, something like 64% -- mid 60's percentages. that is a very different experience from the cuban experience, many of whom came in in the 1960's as a result of special immigration status which continues to this day. not so for mexicans, who -- a

huge chunk of this country was once part of mexico. culturally, language dominant terms of history and culture, there are ties that remain very strong. those two experiences are very different. the mexican experience, which is the bulk of the latino community here, is not necessarily related culturally to rubio and to cruise -- cruz. >> you also look at what happened on immigration day. rubio -- >> and cruise as well -- cruz as well. >> it came to the idea that if a republican could eat through the primary of 2016, it would be

helpful if they were in some favor of immigration that would help them in the general election. a bipartisan group of senators really went after rubio, recruited him and said, you have to be part of this. you're the young face of the party. he went for it. >> he's also mentored by jeb bush, who has been a huge proponent of immigration and continues to be. >> the minute the thing passed, rubio's poll numbers among his base, ted. -- base plummeted. ted cruz is one of the strongest anti-immigration voices. this is a dichotomy for all republicans. you said bush -- he has been better in terms of being more program, but he's not in office. >> picked up on the outreach issue.

we had a poll -- mcclatchy -- looking at the potential publican presidential candidates. there were some interesting numbers regarding ted cruz and rand paul. among tea party support, cruz's numbers shot up. i think he was at 15%. paul's numbers strong. in april, he was down to 7% or 8%. paul's decline as he is may be making a move to become president, he is spoken more about issues of voting rights for felons. he spoke out about the use of

over militarization in ferguson. he he has talked about reclassifying -- some demeanors. that is costing him some among tea party support. >> let's save some time for questions. 30 seconds each, please. looking forward to the 2016 election, who do you think has the best chance for energizing communities of color in this race for the white house that is developing. >> for a candidate? right now, if hillary were to run -- it is more of an infrastructure. we have already seen aapi's rating for hillary, and pac's, other organizations building around that. >> difficult question.

the republican field is so wide right now. it is hard to pinpoint who does what. >> was someone like christie, for example, would he have a better chance than cruz or rubio? >> in my 30 seconds which have now gone down to 15 -- christie has a greater appeal to mainstream republicans than cruz does at this point. so, maybe. >> what a non-answer. [inaudible] [laughter] >> michelle? >> it is too early to tell. there are going to be a lot of ups and downs. let's just look at hillary clinton at one point she had -- last year there was a poll that was done -- god knows why -- she had 60% of hispanic support. and then she talked about sending the central american kids back, and was tone deaf on

immigration, and her numbers are now down in the 20's. there's lots of room between now and next year for numbers to rise and fall. >> bill clinton. [laughter] or joe biden. it is hard to tell. we talked about jeb bush could he is still more moderate on immigration and maybe has support in florida. it is hard to handicap. >> a cautionary tale about your question. prior to the 2008 campaign, hillary clinton was polling 60% among african-american voters. and she did not quite make that. [laughter] >> i wonder why. >> at that time, a lot of

african-americans did not know who barack obama was. he made up a lot of ground in a very short period of time. >> we know who he is now. let's open up for questions out there. we probably have time for a couple of them. anyone? anyone? >> don't be shy. >> you're a journalist. please. >> why is it that asian-americans have not broken through? there are very few politicians that have broken through. what does it take for the asian-american community to break through for politicians to talk about it, and then journalists? >> it has been exciting to see a lot more energy in organizing from the asian-american pacific islander community for the

midterm elections. usually midterm elections, we youusually midterm elections, we see a different turnout. we see a lot more activity from our community. there's a lot more tighter races, especially on the local level. we are seeing where in the past, elected officials do not have a strategy to reach out to our our community. the state legislators are actually noticing because of the population growth in terms of the activity in organizing from our community, and we are seeing that having them influencing congressional members as well as eventually the presidential campaign. as we see nevada and virginia and florida continue to be battleground states, our population is growing there as well. i think as we move forward, between -- a number of work is being done by our community in terms of increasing voter registration and participation, to finally have a data around

our community so we are demystifying about how to outreach to our constituent groups. >> any other questions before we close the session out? right there. >> i know we talked a little bit about how fragmented the hispanic voters are right now, but when asian-americans get that politician who rises through the ranks, do you think that our population will also be as fragmented and it will depend on which country they came from? do you see those problems in our future as well? >> overall, in our 2012 postelection polling, we saw the large support for president obama and also in terms of heavily democratic. so even in terms of the vietnamese population who traditionally vote republican, we also saw a shift in that in the 2012 polling.

that is another reason why the republicans have been doing more work in terms of out reaching. that is a red alert to them if they are losing the vietnamese population as well. in the latest ucla polls almanac, there are now 4000 aapi elected officials and those appointed on different commissions. we are seeing a lot more engagement in terms of even running for office and being appointed. that also energizes our community and creates a pipeline in terms of folks that could be tapped in other offices as well as political appointments. >> one more question, if there are any. >> again, for you. does the fact that there is no unifying language in the asian community -- is then -- does that play a big factor in our influence in politics [inaudible]

>> the reality is that when you are running a campaign, you are really looking at your local base. when you are looking at a campaign in virginia, you may be focusing more on the korean, vietnamese, and indian population versus in minnesota, it would be the month population -- mung population. it goes back down to knowing your audience locally and doing that. for ourselves, we always take into account that we have to do a lot more work in terms of translating materials and making sure our community enters into the process and really does a lot more of that work in hopes -- and hopes the campaign will be easier to outreach to them. >> with that, i would like to thank everybody for coming to our session. thank you to christine chen, bill douglas, michelle, and david. and thank you to viewers at c-span for joining us this morning. [captioning performed by the

national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] >> the latest book, "sundays at eight." there was a risk and i

decided to take it because whether it is an illusion or not, it helped my concentration. it stop me being bored. makeuld keep me awake and me want the evening to go on a longer, to enhance the moment. if i was asked but i do it again, the answer is yes. easy for me to say. not very nice for my children to hear. it sounds a responsible. it would be hypocritical to say no. i didn't know. everybody knows. sawany of the problems we begin at the very beginning.

i spoke about the attempt to control all parts of the economy and social life. when you do that and try to control everything, you create potential dissidents everywhere. if you tell artists they have to you have justway, made him into a lyrical dissident. if you want to subsidize housing in this country, then put it on the balance sheet and make it clear and make it evident and make everybody aware of how much it is costing. fannie mae and freddie mac, through a public company with private shareholders and executives who can extract a lot for themselves, that is not a

good way of subsidizing homeownership. few of the 41 stories in "sundays at eight." on on the u.s., japan and south korea. speakers include retired admiral dennis blair and the south korean ambassador to the u.s. this is a little less than two and a half hours. ?alter [applause] >>thank you. to begood to hear her -- here amongst the many friends. we're here to talk about a pretty serious issue and that is

a matter of history. of course when we say history what we're talking about really is japanese occupation of korea, world war ii and the lead up to world war ii. it it's funny you never reference the post world war two history and you're talking about history, the many decades now of toanese contribution international relations and the economy, but nevertheless, we know what we're talking about when we say history. even listing the events can be a matter of controversy so for now we will let the word history speaks for itself and let our guests unpack the word for us a little bit. we call it american optimism if we can getut i hope through conversation about how we isolate the disputes that japan and korea have over matters of the past and talk thet ways he can manage issues going forward so we can manage the real issues in the

relationship as well as the trilateral relationship with the united states. to lead off the gush and we're very pleased and honored to welcome admiral blair to the stage. former u.s. pacific command and former director of national intelligence and former director of national intelligence. chairman of the board of the peace foundation usa. sps in tokyo was very kind to post dement in tokyo a couple of months ago. front if yous out would like to take a look at it. you can go to our website to find a copy of the speech. he also hosted us and president dement in washington. we are very pleased to be in a position to return the favor and

invite admiral blair to the heritage to the foundation to share stock -- thoughts on the stage. admiral blair. >> thanks very much. it is a pleasure to be here to talk about what is a very serious subject. oncepanish philosopher famously remarked that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. ringing phrase has generally been taken out of context and use it to justify false analogies for current actions. a more intrinsic quote has been it often seems to me

these three powerful countries in the region of china, republic of korea, japan all with long entangled histories are rolling down the stream of history, facing backwards. they are rowing hard, lots of energy, blades are flailing the water, foam is flying everywhere. moving somewhat faster than the currents would carry them, however, they mostly see their own wake. they've mostly see the water and the shoreline that is really behind them. they see what is ahead of them only when they turn their head and take a quick look over their .houlders they do not seem to have a quick destination in mind. did not have a sense of how quickly the larger currents are carrying them down the river.

consider china. chinese leaders are driven by what they see as 120 five years of history of humiliation and are determined never to suffer a time like that ever again. steering by the way got their powerful past humiliation they are less aware of the huge currents propelling them down the river tom and the greatest of these are the currents of greater economic relations and mobilization. europeans true countries and the united states carved concessions out of china in the late 19th century but for the same entries that has propelled china to become the second-largest, second most powerful economy in the world. .r consider japan japan is making the new defense policy not so much by defining its interest, look into the

revising a up but by single constitutional interpretation of the past. that interpretation of its ability to exercise the right of collective self-defense. river,rents in the big nature of the river bank has changed fundamentally since that time. the 1930'sof developed into rising era of passion system and worldwide depression that bread desperation and extreme activity to political views and many countries around the world. the world of the future is not one of ideological motivated our blocs contesting for world dominance. rather a world of contesting individual nations come and sometimes acting individually, sometimes cooperating and functional multilateral groups of various kinds. a world in which failing states pose as much danger as to powerful states and which extremist violence can pose

dangers to develop and it interconnected world. a world in which a major country like japan needs to deploy diplomatic, economic and military powers in sophisticated ways to cooperate with like-minded allies to preserve security and prosperity for themselves for the region and for the world. japan requires major changes for security policies, not just legacy concepts from a past age. finally, consider korea. korean leader attitudes are driven in part historical fears that both japan and china somehow look down on korea based on historical experience. they fear economic domination by china similar to the military domination of korea in the past. they reject japanese apologies for it actions during the colonial time because they do not consider them to be sincere. korean suspect they did not respect them. they celebrate to national

separate holidays on japanese colonial rule. independence day commemorating the effort of 1919 march first and national liberation day august 15. just this year joining with the chinese they completed a new on honored as a patriot but condemned as a terrorist in tokyo for a fascinating general of korea and former prime minister of japan in 1909. yet the big currents of world koreapment have propelled to a much more secure position than it has upheld in the past. it has a security treaty with the united states, the most powerful region in the world. territorial conquest has been discredited. economic prowess counts for more based on hard work, adaptability, other forms of soft power such as cultural influences were increased we import and and by these measures korea is a very powerful

country. it can deal as appear with all nations of the world including china and japan, and should take counsel of the ambition not of its fears. history is important. historical ignorance can cause a country to repeat the same mistake twice. however, remembering too much history, understanding too little is the difference between the past and present can conjure up also historical analogies, restrict the country's ability to make rugrats and cause it to miss opportunities for positive change. restrictanother care of the effective history of the country's international policies we should note. psychologist tells us that for , individuals, the memory of pleasure is more important and lasting than is the measure of lane -- the memory of pain. poor nations it seems to be equally selective but in different directions.

for countries it seems past failures, past injustices are the most powerful memories fake can have and propel action. china, for example, still thinks of itself in part as the developing and we country but china is the second largest economy in the world with nuclear and armed forces to match. the rest of the world thinks china is a very powerful country. is somewhattude dominated by memories of just 15 when the ramp5 control of the government and ran the country into disaster. andveneers of restraint except larry behavior since that time did not seem as important in japan self image. the republic of korea in many ways inks of itself is a small, divided country, a shrimp among whales, many times invaded. rather one of the largest economies in the world with a gdp per capita exceeding more than any of its neighbors.

a worldwide reputation for menu fracturing excellence and international peacekeeping operations and major contributor andf peacekeeping international appeal. politics of history that also play a role. government exploits history for partisan and power purposes and episodes of history the most useful for the purposes are often the ones most nucleating -- most humiliating. democracy is like -- japan and korea exploit insults to bid for political power to appeal the groups with whom the issues have special resonance. it is easy to fall under this syndrome, no politician in a dictatorship or democracy ones to be vulnerable to accusations of inadequate patriotism, softness and supporting the countries on her. -- honor.

they mostly believe they can control it. not so much that it causes damage to their countries. thin line in any country between healthy nationalism.d the introduction of controversial historical events in the car policies and politics often blurs the line and sometimes crosses it. even if nationalism does not become extreme, it certainly prevents progress in other areas. whatever the root cause is and explanation, the exploit and painfulf the nations past -- exportation of the nation's painful past is a conscious political decision, whether it is a controversial wartime trying, raising the comfort women or raising emphasis on an especially brutal long and brutal for.

there have been recent extensions to train japan and china on one hand when historical issues did not play such a large and crippling role. leaders in all three countries understood the benefits of cooperation in many areas, business, cultural, people two people were more important to the countries development, while not denying or covering up the historical issues and in many cases taking steps to knowledge apologize for to them. they did not allow it to dominate the relationship that it prevented progress in the other -- in other areas as is the case now. historical animosities clearly can be a malia rated as aches the experience with germany and most of rest says -- rest of asia's experience.

so much for admiring the problem as historical issues and nationalism and international relations. the much more difficult relation -- question is what to do about it. he has two panels that follow our talks that hopefully can come up with ideas about it. let me give you mine. i mentioned earlier, the solution ultimately lies with political leadership. they must decide it outweighs the advantages. as i mentioned, this has been the case in the past when relations between japan and china were relatively cordial" operative. however, there are other actions that can be taken by others and by their friends and -- my friends in the united states. as a first step they must understand their own histories in a more sure way. all countries have painful

past.es in their the united states has a least three major instances of unjust and brutal treatment of large groups of citizens. slavery against african-americans, slaughter of native americans and x per creations of their land am internment of japanese americans in world war ii. in most major historical episodes like these, some leaders and some ordinary citizens access aerobically. some acted despicably. until a country achieves a full country, itg of its cannot handle the internal pressures to simplify and exploit that history for political advantage and cannot handle the external pressures from other countries from repeated apologies for denial or leverage. however, in my mind there is a

much more fundamental and important reason for the citizens of the country to understand their history. as human beings we have to make sense of our lives and the know how we've reached the current situation, what our forbearers .id on the how that affects us it applies to individuals, families, nations. there will always be elements of myths in family and personal and national histories, but as we become more mature on the we need to get below the myths and enter the reality, complex mixture of heroism, cowardice, loyalty, endurance and surrender that makes a real history the way it actually happened. now it may be too much to hope that china can achieve historical honesty under the current form of government. dictatorships are basically threatened by their own history, and that is why they work so hard to control it. even when they try to deal with it a come up with

oversimplifications. they censor serious works of history like the recent biography. however, i do not believe it is too much to hope democracies like japan and korea can pace their own histories more honestly than they do. facing history is much more than just a sentence or two in a school textbook. it is the encouragement and widespread discussion of serious works of history such as the recent books of japan 1941, an examination of why japan decided to go to war with the obviously more powerful united states. on examination of korean troops conduct in the vietnam war were aldiers had an -- had reputation for brutality that surpassed other countries. it is based on facts, not on whether book hurts or helps. political cause.

research and books are critical. so too are movies, documentaries that reach a wider audience, often with more emotional power. the popular director clint aboutod made a movie hiroshima. it is interesting the movie from the japanese view is more popular in the united states. received more oscar nominations than did the one from the american point of view. also, based on the american cases of coming to grips with the country's history never ends. it is not the case of putting the sentence and official school textbook, entering and accepting apologies and then moving on. a case of continued research on the facts and research of the time, book about african-americans or in 1960's outlook.different

in this sense there really is no place for apology for tea. shameful at says in national history will always be painful and embarrassing and will have to be faced and learned in greater depth. isgetting the history right one important step but there are others. opinion makers, public figures come a media commentator should emphasize the important trends of the future as much as they talk about the narrow, historical issues of the past. great games countries have made since the end of the cold war, civil war in china have all been enabled by international operations. the economic miracles in japan and china have been based on foreign investment and exports, political developments have occurred through political contact with the rest of the world.

territorial aggression has been discredited among advanced nations as a way to increase power. in fact, military aggression whether by the soviet union in afghanistan, united states in considered toally be hugely expensive for dubious games. things have changed since the 1930's and 1940's and 1950's. so while the opinion makers and influential spokesman should not disregard or cover up historical issues, they should place them in a wider context of changes that have taken place since those years. most of all, this puts a premium on national leadership. it requires careful calibration of the flick statements along with private medications. big public actions, even accompanied by very public

are simply fodder for exploitation by political opportunist. public opinion eads to be shaped by smaller steps, thoughtful public statements on days of historical significance, encouragement to private initiative to the history right, public admonitions of statements whether made by a political ally or political enemy, wherever they are made. there is a particular role to be played by leaders who have strong nationalist credentials. they can uniquely lead their countries to put historical animosities he heightened them without the risk of inciting domestic backlash that might in turn only create a further spiral of acrimony. as richard nixon's lead an opening to china, an opening to capitalism, so some current or future nationalist leader in japan or korea has an opportunity to leave his or her mark on history.