united states. announcer: georgetown university law school professor paul butler takes a critical look at the u.s. criminal justice system and its impact on african-american men in his book, "chokehold: policing black men." >> there has never been a time where community relations has been anywhere near good. for a long time if you were a black person and you called the police to report a crime, if you were the victim, the police just didn't pay that much attention to it. now the sense is that the police are overwhelmingly in african-american communities, but not to protect those communities, but rather to lock people up. announcer: sunday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span's day. -- q and a. announcer: now, russia and china experts discuss relations between china, russia, and the relevant how that is

in today's world as well as the trump administration's policy china, and north korea. this is about an hour and a half. >> tonight's topic is about the triangular relations between the u.s., china, and russia, the world's great powers. we got it would be appropriate to hear president nixon's voice and views on this matter 45 years ago. the clip you are about to hear is from the next and white house .apes this is president nixon talking to his national security adviser , dr. henry kissinger in january , of 1972 just one month before the historic trip to china that february. nixon: [inaudible] >> before we start the program,

i wanted to introduce a special guest in the audience today, president nixon's younger brother ed nixon. , [applause]

with that, dr. stoner, the stage is yours. very much.u thank you mr. nixon for having us here. we had a wonderful tour of the library and we all enjoyed it very much. i'm going to start our discussion by picking up on the tape that jonathan played for us which was nixon's idea of former , -- formulating friendly 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 in an interesting and new situation where china and russia are important to the u.s. and global affairs.

since mr. nixon was president of the u.s. and opened relations with china, rather infamously, we have had the collapse of communism in eastern europe, uprisings in tianemen square and the collapse of the soviet union in 1991, we had a period of weak russia in the 1990's under boris yeltsin as it recovered from the trauma of years of communism and the unexpected and sudden collapse of communism. we had 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

came into office and once again claimed that russia is a great power to be reckoned with. in 2014, russia seized or from their perspective took back , crimea. it has been sanctioned as a result 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. in 2011, the u.s. began a pivot, a re-pivot to asia from europe to counter chinese power in the

china sea. in 2016, we elected a new president here in the u.s. which has further thrown into question this trilateral relationship that president nixon was obviously concerned about and very prescient about. my first question to get the conversation rolling to the panelists, what is the state of this trilateral relationship in almost august of 2017? are we heading toward conflict, is conflict inevitable among the three powers, or 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. the first thing, jonathan and the other organizers, thank mr. nixon for coming and for your interesting program. we approached the question that kathryn asked by posing one for all of us to think about. the extent to which the strategic insight that president nixon had enacted on in the late 1960's was essentially a one-shot, a tremendous advantage

from complicating moscow's by opening upulus 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 very, very 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 to counterbalance the u.s. as china entered its reform program and accepted a high degree of dependence on the u.s. and the u.s.-led liberal national order. -- international 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. i think 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.

>> let me 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 tom finished about, you said the 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 nixon made that remark. 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. policy toward the sino-soviet 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 to use relations with china as an instrument 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 was in 15 years when china is a powerful and important country,

we have to have lines of communication open to it and that was the extremely important element in the policy. if we look from there to the present, we see, as i mentioned, russian relations with china much closer than at any point since 1969 to a 1972. -- to 1972. earlier this month, before the g20 meeting in hamburg, there was a separate meeting in moscow where the chinese leader xi jinping spent two days in talks with vladimir putin. they did make that comment, that russian-chinese relations were 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 is for russia, china has become an important market for energy and for arms. it is also a big and important neighbor, 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. russia is much 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.

i think 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. i have three points, to go back to the tape from president

nixon. as we talk tonight about this triangular relationship between russia and china and the 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. president nixon 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. the u.s.'s relationship with china through the 1980's, there was a kind of romantic notion of

this relationship with china which the united states has had periodically through its history when we late 1700s began to trade with china, in the world war ii period, and these wild swings from world war ii to communism to the korean war. with the opening of china, a more romantic view of china, which was not sustainable and indeed was not at all sustained as the events of tianamen and the strategic rationale for the relationship between the soviet union and the united states disappeared with the collapse of the soviet union. the second point is that the diffusion of global power that is ongoing today, so we talk about the rise of china properly , but 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 to the relations between the u.s., russia, china today, in here, i would have a different take than my colleague tom where i do have perhaps more concerns than he had expressed, and maybe we can have a conversation about this this evening. clearly, russia and china, the strategic relationship has evolved since the 1990's, and it was called the axis of convenience. now it is a strategic partnership. there is real security

cooperation going on, there is arms sales from russia to china that continue, military to military dialogue 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 global hegemony, trying to push back. as that translates out they have , their own differences in how you should operationalize that in different parts of the world. something i think is understated, i will finish here, i do believe that there is an ideological component to this relationship, at least between mr. xi jinping and mr. vladimir putin. they are both tough autocrats. both of them, whether it is vladimir putin looking at the ukraine or xi jinping looking at democracy in hong kong, they find a comfort in each other in

terms of looking at the united states as potentially undermining with democratic separation there grandson power. >> thank you. i like that there is a little disagreement. get back to this issue of the trilateral relationship and whether we are in a multi , unipolar world. -- arab,ld world area we got of ourselves in a bipolar the relationship to china and see that china would be important globally in a few decades. if you think about when he really made that decision and the context of a bipolar world and distribution of global power and authority between the soviet union and the u.s. and whene are in 2017,

i was recently teaching a course last spring, i mentioned to international policy students at stanford that i thought we were in a unipolar world, sometimes to trigger a reaction. they reaction was what? half of the students are foreign in the program. is that no, weve are in a multi polar world, the u.s. is not as powerful as it once was. i happened to be working on a --k now undresses resurgence on russia's resurgence. another example is that china is to overtaking the u.s. in terms of its percentage, of the global economy, and russia stays relatively flat, round 3% of the global economy. china is over 26%.

the u.s. is around 19% of the global economy. that is not per capita gdp. the u.s. is still a leader. but china is on the rise. it may be cresting out. is the united states still much more powerful than these two countries? what does power mean in 2017 when russia is a much poorer country and spends less on its military? it is very dependent on oil revenues for its budget, yet what we are talking about now in the u.s. is how it was able to "shake the foundations of american democracy," by allegedly hacking into the democratic national committee even into local electoral offices.

so what kind of world are we in? if it multi polar? are these the three big powers we should be thinking of and watching? is this trilateral relationship particularly important, are is the u.s. still the preeminent power? david, you are looking at me so i will ask you. you made the mistake of making eye contact. [laughter] >> i want -- won't make it again. [laughter] >> i think this actually is an absolutely key question. what kind of world are we living in? are we seeing the formation of some kind of new international system? what will it look like if and when it emerges? there's a huge amount of commentary and discussion on this. i'm not too sure what the new system will look like. i think we are not in the old system. it is not bipolar. i think the unipolar moment that

was invoked after the collapse of the soviet union, it is not polar,ulticolor -- multi trending in that direction. in their meeting earlier this month, vladimir putin and xi jinping called for a multipolar system. the fact they are calling for it means we are not quite there, at least to their satisfaction. the second thing is, yes, we can talk about the triangle. the triangular relationship is important. but yes, india is potentially an enormously important power in the coming decades. the european union at the moment is economically powerful, but very inward looking trying to cope with its own problems. therefore, 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 not focus on just the triangle. it is a broader picture. that is one thing. the second thing is that we are still -- something is not bipolar or unipolar. secondly we have a changing cast , of characters in terms of the states that matter. the third thing is that i think when we think of china today, it is not china in 1969. when we think of russia today it is not russia of 1970. and these are much more open societies. yes, they are authoritarian. nevertheless, technology has made an enormous change. likessia, is not today bresnan -- when it was difficult

to find information outside the soviet union here and now everyone has access to internet. actually, there is very high internet use in russia. also in china. yes, there are sites that are blocked, more so in china than ,n russia, but 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. that is another factor of great importance. one other thing is, whether this president trump is a symptom or a cause of a shift in american thinking about world order, at least some of his statements have called into doubt two of the very important pillars in

which the liberal order that the -- mainly,y created alliances. the issue has been raised. multilateral trade agreements, they were also an extremely important part of american policy. will there be a reaction to this? is this a symptom of longer-term change? the middle of change, you don't know what is transitory or long-term. i think those are issues we have to confront. , save foruestion is u.s. policy or for russian or chinese policy, what kind of world order do we want? what kinds of relationships would we like to have with china in 10 years time, are with russia in 10 years?

what would be most advantageous to the united states? each country has to think in that sense of its own interest. what degrees of cooperation are important? are we headed for protectionism? which i doubt we are heading for in a serious way, but nevertheless, these issues are raised. i think to decide on one's own position on these questions, one has to have some sense of what would be a more than acceptable , let'srder to foresee say in 15 years. can we look 15 years ahead? >> great question. are we going to look 15 years ahead? >> a question about russia and china in the u.s. assessing the relationship now through

different indicators, in the area of defense military, you had given some metrics on the economy. the u.s. spends with its defense budget 40% of the world's total on military spending. china is number two. it is about 15% of global spending. it is coming up steadily. russia is number three. just military spending is not the sole indicator. very important is what is that money being spent on and in what context, what kind of contingencies? it is true in the case of russia, we do have very sharp differences that are of security concern. those are mostly on russia's periphery. in eastern europe, to an extent in the caucuses, it has

historical interest in syria and the middle east. it is simply because of the expanse of russian territory, that is russia look that it's border, 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 koreanwith peninsula, as we are, and concerns over its maritime presence in the south china sea. the united states, we are a truly 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 has two and three. the other 10 are either allies

of the u.s. are close partners or close partners and friends of the united states. second point on the economy, 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. as in during the cold war when we concentrated on its military and security issues like the soviet union, it is playing a very weak economic hand. the third point would be on our soft power that we have to bring to bear. in the united states, still today with all of our difficulties we are facing, still is pretty inspirational model. there is no inspirational

chinese model. some talk about a development model, but no one embraces a chinese article model -- political model. the same is true for russia. at times, especially as we are having difficulties in this moment in our history, that we can take stock of our fears and not recognize how strong that soft power is. if the united states still wants to show the leadership to continue to manage the remarkable set of diplomatic and economic institutions it put in place at the end of world war ii -- i had a trip to singapore a few years ago. i met with a good diplomat. i was talking to tommy about the united states in asia and

worrying about competing with china. i asked his advice. i thought he would say we need to get three more aircraft carriers out here. instead, he said you need to get the new york philharmonic orchestra here. [laughter] that was his point entirely. deploy the new york philharmonic orchestra. that, representing what is very good about the u.s. in terms of we are as a people and these institutions which we've established. kathryn: tom, do you want to comment? thomas: 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 that it is certainly not bipolar

? sometimes it is multipolar. it depends on what the issue is. it depends on what the relevant questions are. sometimes it is sort of like no one is in charge it is a , free-for-all. to pick up the point that karl a poling, if we think of e of the organizing center of which countries are mine -- a line themselves, militarily the u.s. alone has no equal. nothing even close. , formal ally,ally it is north korea. it doesn't add much to china's national power. russia has i think only syria. if that qualifies as an ally. 's point is that if you

think about military power and the uses of power, which is not just fighting ability, but the transparency, of interoperability, conductivity, for thesen necessary alliances that are terribly important to political integration economic , integration. the second type is economic. back in president nixon's day, it truly was a bipolar world. you'll were in the free world in the liberal order, or the soviet socialist order. or you are in the large category of the nonaligned states. they kind of wondered -- .now there is one

game in town. 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 rules-based order it is , not an ideologically based order. the interconnections and overlapping relationships are very enormous. -- numerous. and the third is soft power. the power to attract. head like to underscore that the u.s. has enormous soft power. people would like to be sort of like us. they would like to have their political act together more than we do right now, but the total package of individual freedoms, civil rights, human rights, political participation, economic prosperity, military strength -- who would you like

to be like? you would like to be like the u.s. more than china or russia. there's not much positive appeal there. the importance of economic ties. china remains enormously dependent on the u.s. and on the u.s. allies. for its sustained economic growth. trading the largest partner of most countries in the world. that point is often made. seldom made is the relevant next point. most of that trade is in the form of intermediate goods that go to china for final assembly to be put in a box to go to north america, japan, and europe.

way do dependencies go? 25% of china's exports come to the united states. 40% of china's exports go to the united states, japan, and south korea. 80% of china's exports go to those three countries, plus the european union. 7% of u.s. exports go to china. that's a very, very disproportionate kind of interdependence. for china and for russia, they can't do much for one another that would really accelerate, transformed their economic strength and ability to bring prosperity and fundamentally change their military capabilities. they both need relationships available in the west.

do each of russia and china seek to gain opportunities and , are byes by dangling becoming closer friends with one another? of course they do. fall for that.o look at the hard numbers. i would disagree with kathryn, it's a different set of numbers. i think yours are based on tpp. the numbers show that the u.s. economy is around 24%. that is down a whopping 2% since 1979, when china began its fabulous rise. we have dropped 2%. china's share of the world economy in world bank numbers is about 17%. that's almost exactly the same

as china's share of world population. the u.s. has 24% of the world economic product achieved with 4.5% of the world's population. measured with those kind of indicators, the gap is widening. kathryn: ok. knowse says ppp, everyone purchasing power parity. if you bought a basket of goods in china and russia, it is to compare the relative numbers. yes i was using purchasing power , number of, not gross domestic product numbers. undeniably, china is on the rise. i think part of the explanation for the rise of mr. trump and populism here in the u.s. is -- a concern that we

don't make anything in the u.s. anymore. in manufacturing, it is being outsourced to places like china, but also to other countries in 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 a resurgence of russia and a more aggressive foreign-policy. i will raise the issue that perhaps russia has more allies in china, but russia in particular has more allies then you mentioned. turkey could be one, another budding autocracy. syria is another one.

not exactly a winner, but for russia it is important because it is reasserting interest in , and a concern that the united states was running roughshod and making a mess of the middle east. iran, russia is now anxious to sell more arms than it has in the past. brazil. that is one of the few countries visa regimehas no with. and mr. vladimir putin has presented russia as an option to hedonistic europe. it is anti-liberal, and proudly so. it also has relatively sophisticated methods of soft

power in terms of inserting the opinions of the russian government into our own political discourse. i'm only surprised because i actually watch russia today. it is rt. if you watch rt, you may not know that that is russia today. by the way, the ukrainians also started their own network in reaction to russia today. they present, in some ways, subtle, but in other ways, very slick alternatives to u.s. western liberal perspective on the world. globally.dcast if you are in a hotel in dubai, you can see rt. it's probably in your local cable package here. i have had the pleasure of being trolled on twitter by russian trolls. cyber hacking.

person ofe, one importance in particular, is very doubtful that the russians have this capability of hacking, and of course, vladimir putin says they don't. there's also this other sort of poll of order versus the chaos and open in migration societies. one could argue there is this soft power component that russia had, but in a way the soviet union didn't. the dispute between the soviet union and the u.s. was one of communism versus capitalism. that is not exactly the dispute now. it is one of conservativism and order versus liberalism run amok and disorder. i wonder about that. i wonder if you are worried about that, and whether it makes a difference that these are autocracies, whether russia and

china are the same kinds of authoritarian governments, and the u.s. is still the shining light on the hill that it once was. the united states international presence, does it still have the same power? do we have the same pull we had in the 1970's and 1980's? made eye contact briefly. [laughter] he looked at me sideways. well, couple points. first of all with regard to russia and its friends and appeal, i hesitate sitting between two very distinguished russia experts, but the history of russia would indicate that

those on the borders, which have long histories with russia react to it. i do not believe it has a lot of appeal. if you look at how eastern europe is reacting, trying to get nato to get more involved. kathryn: although we have poland and hungary. authoritarian rollbacks, arguably. karl: right. not pushing towards moscow. caucusus, and the 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 republics particularly persuaded

by the models of either beijing or moscow responding to chinese investment, which is 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 historically been a sphere of influence. it was one time a part of the soviet union. i think there will be contradictions between russia and china geopolitically in that region. never mind the models that they offer. can it be optimistic at looking at the united states and looking at our way of government? looking at the european model and at theditions, end of the day, the systems that have evolved, supported by robust institutions, and our

institutions in the u.s. are still robust, that they have much more staying power than the rule of man. trumps --w usually maybe that was a bad choice of words -- [laughter] the rule of law does usually prevail. i think for the u.s. though, we can't have our head in the sand. , we can sayt china smugly that it is a system doomed to fail, but people for 30 or 40 years now have been saying that china would run out of steam politically, economically. there are too many contradictions. still today, it is doing well. for the u.s. whether we look at , russia or china, getting our political house in order is important. it goes beyond that as well. if i go to china to most of their airports, their airports

look much better than our airports. if i am on a chinese high-speed rail, i would much rather be on that high-speed rail going from beijing to shanghai in terms of comfort and safety than i would like to be on an amtrak train going 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 probably for that matter, and in russia, that i don't know we should emulate. when i look at how much money china is putting into research and development, i worry about that as well. in my view, it is a dual problem. it's a problem politically, but if we can get the house back in order, great confidence. but 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 carry it forward. kathryn: thank you. david. i think the argument about soft power is true. american culture, the american experience. they have had an enormous influence around the world. russia does try to exploit soft power in terms of religion, in terms of art, so on. but it doesn't stretch nearly as far as u.s. popular culture does. on the other hand, i am somewhat surprised -- maybe i shouldn't be -- by the number of political rulers who seem to admire putin.

yes,'t get it myself, but he is a strong man 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? what are the barriers to the emergence of dictators? they may say well, here we have rulermple of a successful who has told russia -- i mean, i'm going to criticize this in a minute -- but who has pulled russia out of the chaos of the 1990's to introduce stability, reassert russia's place in the world, and so on. so there are ideological differences. kathryn mentioned the russian critique of europe as totally decadent, permitting gay marriage, things like that.

that is certainly an element in russian customs. 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 a kind of equitable distribution of goods and standards of living. ago, thea few months former finance minister in the russian government, a man who is close to vladimir putin, actually gave an absolutely scorching, devastating analysis of the state of not only the russian economy, but of the russian state. they seem to be growing at an economic rate of maybe 2%, that's what they can look forward to. and they can't blame sanctions are external things, it is all

to do it , failureinstitutions 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: c-span's washington journal, like the every day with news and policy issues that affect you. coming up, how the region is responding to threats from north korea. and author matthew hahn on his howbook "distracted," on health issues are affect the the united states. join the discussion. and religious leaders and scholars discuss the violent extremism that occurs in prison. it is