>> c-span's washington journal, news andy day with policy issues that impact you. coming up, national review columnist john discusses the outlook for the trump presidency and the republican party's legislative agenda. a woman talks about civil rights in the trump era. then, the a doctor of the bipartisan policy center will discuss the opioid crises. be sure to watch c-span's washington journal, coming up at 7:00 a.m. this morning. join the discussion. next, a conversation on the relationship between the u.s., russia, and china. the nixon library hosted this event, which includes authors and former state department officials. >> tonight's topic is about the

triangular relations between the u.s., china, and russia, the world's great powers. and we thought it would be appropriate to hear president views on thisand matter, 45 years ago. the clip you are about to hear is from the nixon white house tapes. this is president nixon talking to his national security adviser dr. henry kissinger, in january , 1972, just one month before the historic trip to china that february. [inaudible]xon: xon: [inaudible]

>> it wanted to introduce a special guest in our audience today, president nixon's younger brother, ed nixon. [applause] , the stage isat yours. , thankk you very much

you for having us here. we had a wonderful tour this afternoon at the library and we all enjoyed it very much. i'm going to start our on theion by picking up tape that jonathan played for us nixon's idea of former leading relations to counterbalance soviet power. he turned out to be very prescient in terms of not worrying about china necessarily in 1972 but worrying about china farther down the road. we find ourselves now in 2017 witnessing a new interest -- situation where china and russia are important to the u.s. and global affairs. was president of the u.s. and opened relations with china, rather infamously,

we have had the collapse of communism in eastern europe, nemen square and the collapse of the soviet russiaa period of a weak in the 1990's under born -- boris yeltsin as it recovered from communism and the unexpected and sudden collapse of communism. 15 successor states as a result including russia, who are forging their own global relationships and partnerships. in 2000, russia began a rather dramatic recovery economically and mr. and came into office and has proclaimed that russia is once again a great power, a power to be reckoned with. russia seized or from

the perspective took back crimea. they have been sanctioned as a -- by the u.s. and the eu, but not by china, rather famously. in the intervening period between 2014 and 2016, china and russia signed agreements on oil, russian oil sales to china, perhaps as counterbalance to american power. began a pivot,s. a re-pivot to asia from europe power in theinese china sea. 2016, we elected a new

president and the u.s. that has -- in the u.s. that has thrown into question the trilateral relationship that president nixon was concerned about an prescient about. what- my first question is is the state of this trilateral relationship in almost august of 2017? conflict,ding toward is conflict inevitable among the three powers to mayor is an alliance of two against one inevitable? or is it possible we might be able to cooperate with china or russia? there are issues that should unite all three powers, north korea being one in its acquisition of nuclear weapons, yet it does not seem as though that has happened. i would like you all to comment if you can on the state of the

trilateral relationship. should we start with you? >> sure. , jonathan andg the other organizers thanked mr. nixon for coming and for your interesting program. we approach the question that catherine asked by posing one for all of us to think about. the extent to which the strategic insight that president on in theand acted late 1960's was essentially a a tremendous advantage from complicating the strategic calculus i opening up the relationship with china or as one that had continuing consequences for the way in which the countries interacted.

it was mostly a front-end loaded, the u.s. reaped substantial benefits from that relationship. in my answer to china, it was useful to china's leaders to be able to pretend that they could use the strategic relationship ascounterbalance the u.s. china entered its reform program and accepted a high degree of dependence on the u.s. and the u.s.-led liberal national order. it was useful for domestic political reasons to say we can counterbalance the americans with first the soviets and now the russians. i think then and now are quite

different. both russia and china have far more at stake with their relationship with the united states than they do with one another. the area in which i see them having the greatest congruence of issues is in the u.n., the un security council. where both of them have a statutory seat and their desire to have issues in the u.n. i do not think there is a lot for americans to worry about in terms of the two against one alignment in which we are the odd man out. add my thanks to jonathan for inviting us here this evening and to mr. nixon

for being here and for all of you to coming to the panel. let me pick up at the point that , you said thebout u.s. should not be too worried if russia and china had good relations. the first point to make is russia and china probably have better relations now than at any point since 1972 when president remark.de that in 1969, the soviet union and china had very nearly come to war over -- partly over border disputes, but also rather deeper ideological divisions. i spent the morning here working in the archives looking at documents relating to the u.s. sino-sovietd the

conflict of 1969. it was difficult to know how dangerous the situation was at the time but we do know from subsequent testimony that the chinese leadership was very worried about the possibility of the soviet attack. i think president nixon's move relations with china as an answer meant of pressure on the soviet union, i agree with tom, that worked and in the longer term, it was a very wise decision because his argument is an 15 years when china powerful and important country, we have to have lines of medication open to it and that was the extremely important element in the policy.

if we look from there to the i mentioned,ee, as russian relations with china much closer than at any point since 1969 to a 1972. earlier this month, before the g20 meeting in hamburg, there was a separate meeting in moscow where the chinese leader spent two days in talks with flat amir ir putin.vladim the point that relations have been better than they had ever been. the question is what is the nature of that relationship, and is it harmful to the u.s.? let me not go on too long. the nature of the relationship russia, china has become

an important market for energy and for arms. it is also a big and important , it is in the russian interest to have good relations with china, not to get into situations of conflict which might threaten war. it is also in many ways a default relationship. weaker than china economically, not militarily, not in terms of nuclear weapons, but economically, certainly much weaker. its relations with the west are in a terrible state. namely as a result of russia's own policy in crimea and ukraine. from a russian point of view, this is not an entirely satisfactory situation.

they would like to have good relations with the west and good relations with china. it is not a matter of saying yes, in the early post-soviet years we want to be strategic partners with the united states, that has not worked out, let's be strategic partners with china. they would like not to be forced into a relationship which is somewhat subordinate relationship to china. >> thank you. do you want to talk about china? >> thanks to jonathan and the nixon library and thank you, mr. nixon, for being with us this evening. going back to the tape from talkdent nixon, as we tonight about this triangle or relationship between russia and u.s., important to

look back in history even as we talk about partnerships and alliances today and remember that we can often get it quite wrong and we have gotten it quite wrong. ixon in 1972 had the strategic courage to go to beijing but it was evident to many scholars and many in the intelligence committee in the 1950's that there was an opportunity at that point as china and the soviet union at that time were having very sharp differences which were just missed until the 1960's. relationship with china through the 1980's, there a kind of romantic notion of this relationship with china which the united states has had for its history through the

1700s when we began to trade with china, in the world war ii and these wild swings from world war ii to communism to the korean war. china, aopening of more romantic view of china, which was not sustainable and was not at all sustained as the thets of tianamen and strategic rationale disappeared with the collapse of the soviet union. point is that the diffusion of global power that is ongoing today, so we talk about the rise of china properly am a there is a rise of india, there is a rise of many others, and on a relative basis, certainly europe is going down. we can have a debate about the united states in a relative basis. any talk today about the

triangular relationship also needs to come to grips with this triangle as in a greater strategic context and it is not just the three of us, it is a lot more than that. the third point is, with regard thehe relations between u.s., russia, china today, in here, i would have a different take than my colleague tom where heo have more concerned than had expressed and maybe we can have a conversation about this this evening. strategic relationship has and it since the 1990's, was called the axis of convenience. now it is a strategic partnership and there is real security cooperation going on, from is arms sales to -- china to russian that continue,

military joint exercises. i do not want to overstate them, but there is an idea about trying to cooperate globally to preclude the u.s. from gaining that translates, they have their own differences in how they should operationalize different parts of the world. something i think is understated , i will finish here, i do anieve that there is ideological component to this relationship, at least between -- they are both tough autocrats. both of them, whether it is vladimir putin looking at the ukraine or xi jinping looking at democracy and hong kong -- in hong kong. it is potentially undermining their grip on power. >> thank you.

we can mix it up a little bit. issue to get back to this of the trilateral relationship and whether we are in a multi polar world or united polar world. we thought of ourselves as a bipolar world. china would be important globally in a few decades. it is interesting to think about when he made that decision in the context of a bipolar world and distribution of global power and authority between the soviet union and the united states. here we are in 2017. when i was recently teaching a course last spring, i mentioned to international policy students that i thought we were in a uni

pohlad -- polar world. -- half of ours students are for and -- foreign students. their perspective was if we are in a multi-polar world, the united states is not as powerful as it once was he who talked about russia's resurgence and how we understand power. another argument was that china is now over taking the united states in terms of its percentage of the global economy. --sia stayed put a relatively flat. the united states is about 19%. --t is not per capita gpd gdp. china is on the rise as the

cresting now. is the united states so much more powerful than the two countries? ,hat this power means in 2017 when russia is a much poorer country and spend less on its military. it is very dependent on oil revenue for its budget, yet what we are talking about now in the united states is how it is able to shake the foundation of the united states democracy by the democratic nationalist community and electoral offices. -- arend of world rem? we in? is it multi-polar?

is the u.s. still the preeminent power? david, you are looking at me. you made the mistake of making eye contact. >> i will not make it again. [laughter] actually is an absolutely key question. what kind of world are we living in? are we seeing the formation of an new international system? there is a huge amount of commentary on this. i am not sure with the new system will look like. i think we are not in the old system. it is not bipolar. --hink the unipolar moment it is not quite multi-polar word

-- multiplayer. in their meeting earlier this month, vladimir putin called for multipolar system. the fact they are calling for it means we are not quite there, at least to their satisfaction. we canond thing is, yes, talk about the triangular. the triangular relationship is important. enormouslytentially important power in the coming decades. the european union at the moment is economically powerful, but inward looking trying to cope with its own problems. not a major force internationally. japan is also preoccupied with its problems. i think we are seeing a world where we should not -- we should the triangle.ust

it is a broader picture. is, we arething still -- something is not bipolar or unipolar. we have a changing cast of characters in terms of the states that matter. think of china today, it is not china in 1969. when we think of russia today it is not rush of 1970. these are much more open societies are you yes, they are authoritarian. -- societies. yes, they are authoritarian. like it was very different -- now everyone has access to the internet. very high internet use in russia. also in china, yes, there are

sites that are blocked. nevertheless, clever people find ways around those. i think, even the category of a state and the control a state can exercise, that is being challenged by technology. of greatnother factor importance. thisther thing is, whether president trump is a symptom or a cause of a shift in american thinking about world order. some of his statements have called into doubt two of the very important pillars in which was created.rder mainly, alliances. questions about nato and the commitment to south korea and japan.

an issue has been raised. agreements, trade which is also an important part of american policy. you do not know if there will be toeaction to this area -- this. that is always the question when you are in the middle of change are you you do not know what is transitory or long term. , what kindestion is of world order do we want? what kind of relationships would we like to have with china in 10 years time? what would be most advantageous to the united states? for country has to think its own interests.

are we headed for protectionism? nevertheless, these issues are raised. to decide on one's own position on these things will have some sense of what would be an acceptable or more than acceptable world order to foresee.- four c -- want to look 15 years ahead? >> the question about russia and china, and the united states, assessing the other relations now through different indicators. in the area of defense military, you have given some metrics on economy. the united states with its

defense budget 40% of the world's total of spending. china is number two. it is about 15% of global spending. it is coming up steadily. russia is number three. military spending is not the sole indicator. that moneys what is being spent on and in what context? it is true in the case of russia, we do have very sharp differences that are a security concern. those are mostly on russia's periphery. europe, it hasrn historical interest in syria and the middle east. it is simply because of the expansive russian territory. as it looks at all of its order areas, in a sense it is global

in security concerns. in the case of china, china in terms of the way it looks at its security is primarily an asian power at this point. it is starting to get global interest, but primarily in asia. the united states, we are close -- truly a global power in every sense. in this domain of security globally, as i talked about who is spending what on defense, the top 10 defense spenders you have china and russia as two and three. the other 10 are either allies of the united states close partners and friends of the united states. economy, theon the united states and china together

are about 40% of the world's gdp right now. if you look at global trade and investment, although the chinese are moving ahead in trade, between the two of us, still pretty dominant. russia is number eight in the world in its gdp. during the cold war was constantly traded -- concentrated on security issues. weak playing a week -- economic hand. the third point, would be the soft power that we have to bring to bear. in the united states, still today with all of our difficulties we are facing, inspirationaly model. there is no inspirational chinese model. some talk about it about mental model -- a developmental model.

at times, especially as we are having difficulties in this moment in our history, that we can take stock of our fears and thatecognize how strong soft power is. if the united states still wants to show the leadership to continue to manage the remarkable set of diplomatic institutions and put in place at the end of world war ii, i have atrip to singapore -- i had trip to singapore a few years ago. i met with a good diplomat. i was talking to tommy about the united rates in asia -- united states in asia and competing with china. say we need would to get three more aircraft carrier is out here. tommy said, you need to get the

new york philharmonic orchestra here. that was his point entirely. the ploy the new york philharmonic orchestra. the new york philharmonic orchestra. >> tom, do you want to comment? >> i do. i would like to address the question. i think these are important points. we are underscoring and challenging. what kind of the world is it? it is certainly not bipolar. multipolar. is it depends on what the issue is. relevants on what the questions are. sometimes the locals are like

nobody is in charge, it is a free-for-all. to pick up on the points think of thef we organizing center of which countries are mine themselves, alone has noe u.s. equal. china has one ally. it is north korea. has a thing with syria, is that qualifies as an ally. the uses of the elements of national power related to the military, which is not just fighting ability. the amount of transparency of

, connectivity, integration which is necessary for these alliances. they are terribly important to political integration, economic integration. day,in president nixon's it was a bipolar world. you are in the free liberal order or the soviet socialist order. or you are in the large category of the nonaligned states. the liberal order that is the extension of the free world order. almost all countries participate in it. almost all benefit from it.

it is a world based order. it is not an ideologically based order. the connections and overlapping relationships are very enormous. soft power is the power to attract. has an enormous soft power. people would like to be sort of like us. they would like to have their political act together. the total package of individual freedom, civil rights, human rights protections, political participation, economic prosperity, military strength, who would you like to be like? you would like to be like the united states. there is not much positive appeal there.

.he importance of economic ties china is in or mostly dependent on the united states and the united states allies. china is the largest trading partner of those countries in the world. --t point is often most of that trade is in the form of intermediate -- they go --china way do dependencies go? 25 percent of exports come to the united states. go to thena's exports

united states, japan, and south korea. 80% of exports go to those three countries, plus the european union. exports go to china. that is a very disproportionate kind of inner -- interdependence. as for russia, they cannot do that woulde another really accelerate come sustain -- accelerate and sustain. they both need relationships available in the west. they both seek to gain some opportunities and advantages by

becoming closer friends with one another? of course they do. we do not have to forfeit that. with the hard numbers. look at -- look at the hard numbers. 24% is down a whopping 2% since 1979 when china began its fabulous rise. we dropped 2%. is aboutorld economy 17%. that is almost exactly the same as china's share of world population. the u.s. has 24% of the world achieved withct

4.5% of the worlds population. the gap is widening. so everyone knows purchasing power. trying to compare how much those would cost, relatively speaking. i was using purchasing power , not gross domestic product numbers. think part of the explanation went off. mr. trump and populism in the united states is a concern that we do not make anything in the united states anymore. outsourced to places like china, but also to other countries in south east

that produce more cheaply than we do in the united states. that is a concern. i also wanted to ask about this issue of soft power. the power to attract as opposed to force. when we think about the rise of china, if there is a rise, we think about it was surgeons of russia and a more aggressive foreign-policy. i will raise the issue that perhaps russia has more allies in china. -- dan china. to -- than china. turkey could be one. for russia, it is important because it is reinserting interest in the middle east. a concern that the united states and making roughshod

a mess of the middle east. anxious toa is now sell more arms than it has in the past. that is one of the few countries that russia has known business with. russia aso presented a populist are tentative -- alternative to europe. it is anti-liberal and probably so. proudly so.set -- it has developed relatively sophisticated methods of soft inserting the of opinions of the russian government into our own political discourse. i watch russia today.

ukrainians started their own network in reaction to russia today. present, in some ways, subtle alternatives to a u.s. western liberal perspective on the world. if you are in the buy and a hotel, you will crt. -- see rt. i have had the pleasure of being told on twitter by russian trolls. it is very doubtful that the russians have this capability of seven hacking, and if they did,

they would never be caught. there is this order versus the chaos in europe. one could argue that there is a soft power component that russia that a disputeay was one versus -- one of communism versus capitalism. it is now more of conservatism and order versus liberal run amok. i wonder about that. i wonder if you are worried about that and whether it makes a difference that these are a tapesty's. -- difference. united states is still the shining light on the hill that

it once was. the united states international presence, does it still have the same power? we hadave the same pull in the 1970's and 1980's? carl, you made eye contact racially -- briefly. first of all, with regards to russia and its friends and appeal, i hesitate sitting between two very distinguished russia expert. the history of russia would indicate that those on the borders, which have long histories with russia react to hashat i do not believe it

a lot of appeal. you look at how eastern europe is reacting, trying to get nato to get more involved. >> we have poland and hungary. >> not pushing towards moscow. caucuses, ift the you look at central asia, central asia with their own concerns about russia. getting back to the triangle, if we talk about russia's security relations, central asia is going to pose a great challenge for the russia china relationship. none of the central asian particularly persuaded by the models of either by sharing -- beijing or moscow

responding to chinese investment going into central asia in a big way. if you compare russia's trade with central asia to china's, you compare the levels of investment of russia and china, moscow is being eclipsed. that has been a sphere of influence. i think there will be contradictions between russia and china geopolitically in that region. nevermind the models. can it be optimistic at looking at the united states and looking at our way of government? day, thed of the systems that have evolved, supported by robust in the tuitions, and our institutions in the united states are proving to be robust, they have much than the ruleower of man. rule of law usually trumps --

maybe that was a bad choice of words. the role of law usually prevails. for the united states, we cannot in ther hit -- head sand. as we look at china, do we say that is a system that is doomed to fail? or 30 years, people have been saying that china will run out of team politically, economically. there are too many contradictions. still today, it is doing well. we look at russia or china, getting our political house in order is important. it goes beyond that as well. if i get a china, to their airports, their airports with much better than our airports. if i am on a chinese high-speed rail, i would rather be on that hice read rail going from beijing to shanghai in terms of

comfort and safety than i would like to be on an amtrak train pulling from washington dc to my home in raleigh, north carolina. if i look at education in the united states, we have severe problems. we do not have a monopoly on doing it right. there are things going on in china and russia, which i do not know well. shouldre things which we perhaps in the late. when i looked the money china is putting into research and development of i worry about that. development, i worry about that. if we can get the house back in order, great confidence. part of that political will also has to be in getting our house in order, prioritizing what needs to be done so that our sons and daughters and grandchildren will have the basic infrastructure and capability in this nation to

take advantage of this wonderful political institution and carried forward. >> thank you. david. >> i think the argument about soft power is true. american culture, the american experience. they have had an enormous influence in the world. russia tries to exploit soft power in terms of religion, in terms of art, so on. it does not stretch nearly as far as u.s. popular culture does. on the other hand, i am somewhat surprised -- maybe i shouldn't be -- i the number of political rulers when meyer -- who admire putin. he is a strong demand and strong leader. he seems to be in control of things. there are lots of states where

that is an issue. what kind of control does the government have? barriers to the emergence of dictators? here we have an example of ruler. -- a successful he has pulled russia out of the chaos of the 1990's to introduce stability, reassert russia's place in the world, and so on. there are ideological differences. catherine mentioned the russian critique of europe as totally decadent, permitting gay marriage and things like that. there is an element in russian culture that it is not offering the kind of alternative it did in the cold war, were central

planning was going to be the answer to economic growth and equitable distribution of goods and standards of living. in fact, a few months ago, former finance minister in the actually gavement an absolutely scorching, devastating analysis of the russian economy and the russian state. he said we seem to be growing at an economic rate of 2%. that is what we have to look forward to. we cannot blame sanctions or external things. it is all to do with ourselves. , failuref institutions of structure, totally inadequate

state administration, the fact that people -- civil society is not allowed to take any kind of initiative. ofolutely scathing criticism the existing order and russia. it is not saying we would be fine if only the sanctions were lifted and so on. basede is offering is not on different principles. it is recommending good of a market-based society in which entrepreneurship is allowed to play an appropriate role. it is very striking that when russians who want to set up businesses or to israel or come to california, they do extremely well. not in russia. the conditions are very difficult. that we are in a

ideological conflict. i do not think russia is a good example for that because it is not carrying through the reforms that most economists would say are desperately needed. when you look at russian arguments about international politics, it is all about geopolitics. critiquea whole developed by vladimir putin about the west taking advantage of russia's weakness after the collapse of the soviet union. also, democratic values are seen as a threat. georgia andons in

ukraine are seen as extremely dangerous for russia. revolution, ige went to moscow to visit. a friend of mine said this is your trial run for russia. you have done this in the ukraine and 90 will do it in russia. that is an extremely dangerous mentality. there are elements to talk about russia and the moment that are dangerous. one is the notion that russia really is a great power. russia cannot be russia unless it is a great power. i remember in the 1990's, very often hearing russians say to me russia is condemned to be a great power. the second is the sense of fragility of the social basis of

the order that might be threatened by democratic ideas. in china, i do not know. my colleagues have not seen it as a threat that they certainly move against western ideas coming in. we talk about the collapse of the soviet union. we think of the collapse of the soviet union was a total natural process. the way it is regarded in russia or china is to take it very seriously. that has relevance to our regime. what was it that caused the soviet union collapsed -- two collapse?- to to reforms of trying

an authoritarian system and power -- in power. it makes it extremely difficult because it seems to raise in norman dangers -- enormous dangers. >> i do not want to tickle your opportunity to comment -- to take away your opportunity to comment. i want to talk about the strategic balance in areas of cooperation among these three relatively different powers. my other point is i see jonathan with a microphone and i am anxious to get some questions from the audience as well. i think we will let tom make his comments. also, comment refer on areas of cooperation. then we will open to the audience in our remaining 15 to 20 minutes. together someie of the themes from the

discussion thus far. one is to underscore that the world is very different than when president nixon made the remarks that were played at the beginning. today's world is not a bipolar world. the consequences of that is we ofll have the old thinking international relations. if someone is rising, someone else must be going down. not what isthat is going on. we have multiple countries doing much better in some areas than other areas. we do not really have enemies. we have competitors. we have partners. we have for enemies -- fren emies.

the model or structure of the international system is different. we are in transition from something that was undefined. we do not have a consensus in our own country about what the order would look like, but we ought to be in that system. shape thathelp future. that makes it difficult to have the kind of strategic vision and policies that are well represented in president nixon's opening to china as a way to toplicated and -- complicating. the u.s., in my judgment,

therly does not have attraction that we once did. that is our fault. that is not the fault of somebody else. it does not mean that somebody has gotten more traction than we do. chaoticcts the somewhat and ill-defined structure of the international system. still forming, still in transition from what we had to what comes next. shame on us if we are so that we do not take an activist role. shame on us if we do not seek to take advantage of opportunities to collaborate, which are many. that we do not address the friction before it becomes more

serious tensions. there is nothing about the current structure of the international order, as screwed up as it is, for having nobody in charge of the issues. conflict -- dooms us to conflict. ofhave more areas interesting cooperation with china do we had areas of conflict. we have far fewer with russia. the possibilities are greater. it is a good thing. it is a good thing that china and russia have better relations and they have had in a long time. that is a stabilizing factor.

>> great. thank you. one of our colleagues have written a book about russia and the united states with respect to nuclear power. jonathan, i know you have the microphone open. >> i will take a couple questions from the audience. let's start by asking. we have three pretty big personalities. how did these big personalities play a role in influencing trilateral relations? >> who wants to take that? ok. i made eye contact. -- i will comment on

putin and trump. i think this matters to a significant degree. as a coldhearted scientist i was trained to think that we have interest, not friends. we have interest, ultimately. clearly, this matters a great deal to the current president of the united states. he wants people to like him. wants vladimir putin to like him. why not is the case, i do not know. -- that is the case, i do not know. he is many things. we can use negative adjectives about him, but one thing mr. pruden is not, is stupid -- mr.

putin is not, is stupid. i think he will use mr. trump's seemingly eagerness to be liked and to be friends to russia's advantage. he is always cognizant about what russian interests are. and right now that is getting rid of sanctions. he will insist that they are not making any difference to the russian economy. one way that they are not helping is in attracting russian investment. mentioned, the best russia can do in the future is to grow by 2% each year. a have not hit that yet. the only way russia is going to grow from what has happened in is investment.

with sanctions, it cannot get that investment. this is a tremendous problem in the one to three to five year. what we are seeing happen in russia is in 2018 mother will be another presidential -- 2018, there will be another presidential election. win.s to i predict that he will. you have to make it look legitimate. in order to make it look legitimate, he has to be the defender of russian interests against western hedonism and culture. therefore, you must stop what is going on in the ukraine and crimea. you must also make the economy grow. people cannot eat prestige. people cannot eat crimea. they will need to see real

, or his ability to maintain order and stability in the country and regime he has -- he benefits from those around him immediately from the state. they must perform. there is domestic politics involved in their international stance. i would say the relationship matters. my concern is some of the washes -- ourand we have andident is very confident perhaps overly confident in dealing with mr. putin. he knows how to work people. that personal relationship matters quite a lot.

we as americans have reason to be concerned about it to make sure our countries interest are served. >> something about the u.s. china relationship is point number one, chinese senior hopeful thatre donald trump would win. wasetary clinton extraordinarily unpopular with chinese senior leadership. she was looked at as the architect of america's rebalance to asia. i think that they were happy when they saw that the roulette -- what the election results were. verynping is facing a consequential party of congress this fall. one of the things that xi jinping does not want going into that congress is a frosty or

difficult relationship with the united states. part of his scorecard is how is he managing that relationship? is it possible we will see a different relationship or different set of policies with regard to the united states? i do not think we see an abrupt change. the third point is with regard to president trump. i think as many world leaders right now, xi jinping is looking at president trump. they have heard a lot of rhetoric, a lot of policy goals stated. at some point, they are going to start taking stock of how many of those policy statements that he is making and policy goals he is trying to set, how many are being realized. if not many are being realized, at some point they are going to

begin to discount. one other aspect of the administration, there are not a lot of appointments being made right now. if you go into the ranks of the department of state, department of defense, all those apartments -- departments that are consequential in managing relations with china and all of our partners around the world -- xi jinping does not micromanage chinese foreign-policy. they are not able to micromanage policy. the diplomats, soldiers, intelligence, those are the ones who go out and take the broadvision and implement. right now, the seats are empty. , iget back to xi jinping know he has a bureaucracy telling him that they are not certain right now what the

policy is of the united states. by this time, usually have assistant secretaries of state that they would be meeting with. then the policies of the two presidents and countries would start to take shape. >> question in the back row. president obama reportedly told president-elect, that north korea would be his single most difficult foreign-policy issue during his term as president --as how do you understand as president. how do you understand how russia extent to which help?re willing to interest,ly in their

ultimately, to get the solution that is favorable to united let it fester with the possibility that things might get out of control? >> tom? >> let me take the china peace of it. -- piece of it. north korea is an intractable problem. there are no good options. bulletre no magic lit -- solutions. it is what i have worked from the 1980's to last week. it would be nice to think that china russia could solve the problem for the region. it is not possible. over has more leverage north korea than anybody else.

they do not have enough leverage to produce results. worry that in trying to pressure probably an outcome an outcome around nuclear weapons, around the missile program, it has a greater danger of destabilizing than of stabilizing the situation. it is better not to try very hard, try just enough to keep the americans off your back, but not hard enough to reduce a real danger of regime clacks -- regime collapse. i need for cooperation in

managing diplomatic dimensions of human suffering. russiathe united states, have to play a collective role. at the moment, there is a lack to talk iness specific terms about managing contingencies. we are talking to one another about possibilities in north korea. this is a real dilemma that does not have an obvious quickfix solution. is we need toe talk to the chinese continuously about north korea so that there is good understanding of how

each of us sees development, understands what each is doing havet doing, but not to low expectations. >> if i could say something about the russian attitude, which has received much less attention than the chinese. i think russia, although it has -- this is a worrying issue, but it is really major role tothe play in dealing with it. i think some of the russian apprehension about action against north korea would be the same as the chinese. one fear is destabilization on the korean peninsula.

that is one aspect. , which some of my specialist friends tell me is more important than we think, to cooperate in moving against north korea is difficult because for all the hostility that exists tween them, it is in our bill i -- it is an ally and fellow communist state. it is more important for the russians that what if there is a collapse of the regime in the north and a unified korea with american presence there? i think russians have tried, not with huge success, to integrate

themselves into the economic dynamics of northeast asia. they are happy to have a quiet withood relationship china. they would not want to get out of step with china. so that's the china to deal with it. china is the key actor. if china wanted, russia would play some role. it would not be in their interest to oppose what the chinese want, given the current state of relations. , to follow up on what david says about the chinese perspective. thatl agree denuclearization is in each country's interests. the break point between the

united states and china and russia is that in the uncensored -- is in the uncertainty of a andme collapse, the chinese russian worry is that the peninsula would be unified on -- seoul's -- soul terms. china's goal is to push back u.s. presence in the western pacific over the next 5, 10, 15, 20 years. they worry about the korean peninsula. they have seen it as if there should be chaos, it should then reunification. that would be worrisome to the russians. a final footnote to this is we

talk about triangles. as we talk about china and the united states, russia, japan, .orth korea at the end of the day, any u.s. policy is only going to go as far as our democratic republic of korea what us to go. they are the ones that live in the neighborhood. >> another? here. theetting back to the theme. if president trump articulated anything in the campaign, i think it is safe to say he wanted a more confrontational approach to china. it controversially less confrontational approach to russia -- a controversially less confrontational approach to russia.

he said he did not think that would go very far because he he thought the rapprochement with china was important to putin. i'd like you to comment on that. if president trump takes the kind of go-it-alone approach -- i think it's ironic that the chinese clearly like the current world order and i think it's ironic that at davos which has become symbolic of the world order, what the keynote speaker was president ji. -- president xi. >> let me just say something about russian attitude president trump. there was a lot of coverage in our press about, i think, champagne bottles being upped in the duma when the election

results came in and i think actually, yes, they were. but i was in moscow not so recently, but in december, after the election, and nobody i talked to took that point of view. they said, you know, we're very uncertain. yes, he says nice things but we don't know what that means. and one friend who served in the ministry of defense said, yes, he's saying nice thing bus he's promising to build up the defense budget. so what's this about? what's going on here? most i -- the best favorable prognostication i heard was the one information journalists made that we might have a short honeymoon period but a lot of issues will emerge. i don't think we've had a short honeymoon period or at least

it's been a tempestus honeymoon or not a honeymoon at all. i think the reasons are complex. it's not just because china is more important to the u.s., but i'm not going to go into all the controversies. >> another couple things on china. frame the issue, one of the things that made our 2016 that the nusual was business community, for -- which for eight administrations was strongest advocate of stability , you canhina relations have the rhetoric for lech bus afterwards it's about money. it's about costs. but the business community basically sat this out.

business community is not happy ith xi's basically china first policy, theft of intellectual property, the national treatment of investment, the made in china 2025. is in some ways the mirror image of made in america from mr. trump. under that, there really are some fundamental issues having to deal with resip rossity. they're global issues because of the aprotch -- of the approach the united states has followed nce 1947, 1948, of accepting unyeah -- unequal trade relationships. it made our partners strong, made our alliances strong, made us rich. it was a smart policy. but the public clearly said, why are we still doing that? we won the cold war.

we're not getting richer anymore. so the demands for resip rossity, include big the -- for resip rossity include big the business community make china a legitimate target for the u.s., if you want to invest in the u.s. only in areas you allow us to invest in. i think we'll see that which is different than the campaign example mrs. trump used but it's going to be there. there are things that it's hard for me to imagine mr. trump making issues. human rights. the defense of constitutionalism. this does not seem to be high on his ayen da. i'm sure that makes the chinese happy. taiwan, i don't think, despite some developments right after the election, i don't see a prospect for changing u.s. spoil

toward taiwan or the mainland making that an issue. the key here is the economic interdependence and the ability to collaborate on a whole range of transnational issues. china, like the united states, is either part of every problem or must be a part of any solution. on climate change, on globalization, on demographic urbanization. it goes on. we really don't have any sensible prospect except to cooperate. i haven't got a clue which way r. trump wants to jump on this >> i have a suggestion. being a geologist and mostly because of that they say i have rocks in my head, but i'm hearing the idea of centers of

rotation and so on and if we think about the world, looking at it from a distance and looking at the centers of influence everywhere, you're pointing out the three that are most obvious to us all today but what is it that changes the rotation? at disturbs an axis or rotation? somebody like a trump makes a lot of off the cuff notes that some people wonder about but that has an influence. it affects things. i hope what you folks, you're so generous with your thoughts, i just hope we cab keep folks like us to keep an eye on it and warn the youngsters that, look, the rotation is change. and it's coming from people we never thought would change it. so read the news and keep an eye

on it and listen to those who have experience. i'm glad you're here. i'm very appreciative of you being here. thank you very much. [applause] >> hi, thank you for being here. so my question is more related to long term, not necessarily with current situation, so besides soft power and financial interdependence what elements would help the u.s. maintain its allies? so what are your thoughs on that? >> who wants to open that up? i have thoughts. it think carl pointed at earlier, getting our own house in order. it is very hard to be a shining

ample to others when we have partisan political collapses, when we can't seem to address issues and fixing the problems in our health care system, to an edging infrastructure, to an inadequate education system, to the failure to retrain people who have been displaced by automation and movement of jobs to some other location. these are fakesable problems. we have it within our financial and political capacity to do it. we need to do it for ourselves. if we do it for ourselves, we go , in my view a long way toward burnishing you are credentials

for leadership in the international system, the strength of the magnetic appeal r soft power, and have the capacity to provide the kinds of leadership that the world really needs. one sentence which comes from chinese a few years ago, i've been interacting with china for -- literally since the ping-pong initiative that followed president nixon's trip in 1972. the observation was, the united states must continue to lead. we're not ready to lead, nobody else is ready to lead. if we make a proposal, it's dead on arrival because we make it. you have thick skins, you're used to getting beat up. our leaders can't afford to propose something that is laughed out of court.

we worry about suffering economically, suffering in terms of the limited amount of international influence we have. if we make a proposal that isn't accepted or even worse we launch an initiative that fails. so you have to take advantage of the technological, innovative, economic capacities as well as the greater political capacity. i agree that the prerequisite is hysician heal thyself. >> two points on this. ne would be that if there is a diffusion of global power under way right now, and indeed there is tom's point is well taken, it gets overstated how much ground the quites has lost if you look at percentage of global wealth, the united states over the last 20 years has not lost a lot. but there has been a defusion

that has gsh a diffusion that has gone on from allies and partners to other parts of they have -- parts of the world. thing probably our standing economically in the world over the next 50 years would be one where it may come down further, so that's prioritization and the idea that in the 1950's or 1960's or 1970's that we could move anywhere at will and set our priorities as we pledged, those days, i think, are over. so when we look at places in central asia or parts of the middle east, parts of the world, should we be more discriminating and are there other regional powers that have much more vested interests and will credibly apply than the united states. the second point is with the use of force. by the united states of america. so we're gathered here in this library, the many

accomplishments of president richard nixon was the establishment of the all-volunteer army and the all-volunteer force. i graduated from west point in 1978 and the army that i entered was broken. and president nixon knew this. and the move toward the all-volunteer force was a brilliant move and president nixon, he lived long enough to see how magnificent our armed forces became. but now i worry that far removed from this all-volunteer force creation in 1972 and 1973, we've had several changes, generations in the united states since that era and i worry about the disconnection of our armed forces with the american people. so to ask you the question, had we had a conscript force a draft force, would we have gone into iraq in 2003?

and i think a case could be made, maybe not. because a lot of mothers and fathers would have been calling up their congressmen asking, what is this about? certainly i know that 10 years after 9/11, we would not have had 100,000 troops in afghanistan, which we did. and the reason for that is, is because it's an all-volunteer force and mothers and fathers, they don't call because it's all volunteer. and so this breaking of the tissue between the american people and our congress and our armed forces, i do worry about increasingly. that's not to say that the vol tier force model was at all a mistake. by no means could we restart a draft but we do as a nation have to start to think through this. how can you, us, do we get more skin in the game for the american military so we don't end up with a phenomena which we have today in which before the

all-volunteer force was established, the break point after the all-volunteer force was established, we've had five times per anumb the amount of military deployments into combat zones than we did before the volunteer force and this is something to get back to your question that also needs to be addressed. we need the rejufe nation of america that tom talks about. we also have to think about our face to the world right now and i'm afraid that too often as we go around the world and we do our travels, there's a lot of the world that sees the primary face of the united states not as tommy's new york symphony but in battle group, marines, and aircraft carriers. >> thank you. to our distinguished panel. let's give them a round of applause. [applause]

thank you for your enlightening incite. thank you for our audience. we'll see you at our next event. thank you so much. ♪ [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2017] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] announcer: a team of researchers hadntly announced it

developed a new genetic procedure. an employer survey on health care benefit costs will be released this morning. they will look at projected cost increases for 28 t and how is delivered and paid for. a brief house pro forma session, we will have a war among countering religious extremism. then a forum on global corruption. we will hear from a pullet surprise winning. this is at the carnegie endowment for international peace. follow on c-span, c-span.org or the c-span radio app up. graphics it was recently announced scientists work able

to create a genetically modified human embryo. we will hear from the author of "a crack in creation." the professor is calling on a moratorium on the use of the technology called crisper, which she helped to create. she sat down at the aspen institute to talk about some of the moral implications. >> welcome everybody. i am walter isaacson, and you're about to enjoy the most important session you will hear at the aspen ideas festival this [laughter] walter: it is about the most important technology that will affect oures