railroaded for a murder that day he didn't do and how that speech played an interesting role. when the case was reopened by a reporter,times" his alibi checked out. hey all remember exactly who was with and where they were because of the martin luther king speech and he was watching. rter: russia and china discuss triangulation and its relevance. the trump administration's policy toward those countries and north korea. this is from the nixon library. is about thetopic

triangular relations between the u.s., china, and russia. we thought it would be appropriate to hear president 's voice and views on this matter. this is from the nixon white house tapes. this is president nixon talking to his national security advisor. pres. nixon: [inaudible]

>> before we start, i want to introduce a special guests in our audience, president nixon's younger brother, ed nixon. [applause] with that, dr. stoner, the stage is yours. dr thank you for having us here. we had a wonderful tour of the

mr. putin came into office and proclaim that russia is once again of great power. to be reckoned with. , or fromrussia seized their perspective, took act

crimea. back crimea.- took in the intervening periods between 2014 and 2016, china and oil,a signed agreements on perhaps as a counterbalance to american power. 2000 -- in 2011 the united states began a refit it to asia from europe to counter chinese power in the south china sea. in 2016 we elected a new president and the united dates which has further thrown --

my first question to get our conversation rolling to our panelist is what is the state of this trilateral relationship and almost august of 2017? are we heading toward conflict? is conflict inevitable among anse three powers, or is alliance of two against one inevitable? is it possible we might be able to cooperate with either china or russia? there are issues that should unite all three powers, north korea being one in its acquisition of nuclear weapons, yet it doesn't seem as if that had happened. i would like you all to comment in on the state of the trilateral relations. tom, should be served via?

should we start with you? tom: sure. mr. nixon, thank you for coming. and thank all of you for your interest in the program. by me approach the question posing something to think about which is the extent to which the strategic insight that president in thead and acted on late 1960's. a one-shot --ally was essentially a one-shot advantage for calculating moscow by opening up the relationship with china. it had consequences for which the countries interacted. i think it was mostly a front u.s. reads very

substantial benefits from that relationship. china'sery useful to leaders to be able to pretend that they could use the strategic relationship to counterbalance the united states as china entered into its reform and opening program and accepted a high degree of dependence on the united states. domestic,y useful for political reasons to say, we can counterbalance the americans with first the soviets then now the russians. i think then and now are quite different. chinak both russia and

have far more at stake in 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 united in the security council, where both of them have a statutory seat and their desire to have issues in the united nations. i don't think there is a lot for americans to worry about in terms of alignment in which we are the odd man out. david? thanks to me add my jonathan for inviting us here this evening and to mr. nixon for being here and all of you for coming to the panel. point pick up exactly the

that tom finished. use of the u.s. shouldn't be too worried if russia and china had good relations. i think 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 fact, in 1969, the soviet union and china had very nearly disputesar over border but also rather deeper divisions. i spent the morning here working in the archives and looking at documents relating to the u.s. sino-sovietd

conflict. it was difficult to know how dangerous the situation was. from subsequent testimony that, in fact, the chinese leadership was very worried about the possibility of the soviet attack. movenk president nixon's in the short term to use relations with china as an instrument of pressure on the tom,t union, i agree with that works. and the longer term, it was a very wise decision because his when china is a very powerful country, we have to have lines of communication open to it. i think that was extremely important in the policy. if we look from there to the present, we see russian relations with china much closer

1969.t any point since comment that that russia-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 united states? 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

from a russia point of view, it is an russian interest to have good relations with china and not to get into situations of conflict, which might threaten war. defaultso a relationship. russia is much weaker than china economically, not militarily or in terms of nuclear weapons. economically, certainly much weaker. its relations with the west are in a terrible state. mainly as a result of russia's own policy and crimea and ukraine. from a russian point of view, this isn't entirely satisfactory. they would like to have good relations with the west and with china. it is not a matter of saying, oh, yes, in the early

tot-soviet years we wanted be strategic partners with the united states. that didn't work out, now let us be strategic partners with china. i think they would like to not be forced into a relationship, which is somewhat subordinate to china. >> thank you. thank you again, jonathan perhaps three points to go back to the tape from president nixon. as we talk tonight about this betweenar relationship russia, china, and the united states. it is important to look back to history as we talk of partnerships and alliances today

and remember that we can often get it quite wrong and we have gotten it white wrong. president nixon in 1972 had the wisdom and the strategic courage to go to beijing. it was evident to many scholars and many in the intelligence community in the 1950's that there already was an opportunity at that point as china and the soviet union at that time were having very sharp differences which were missed until the 1960's. the united states relationship with china through the 1980's, there was a romantic notion of this relationship with china which the united states has periodically had through its history through the 1700s when we began to trade with china -- any world war ii.

-- then these wild swings from world war ii to communism to the korean war. the opening of china then, a more romantic view from china which was not sustainable and it was not sustained as the events in tiananmen square. and then 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 -- we talk about the rise of china properly -- the rise of india, the rise of many others. on a relative basis, europe is going down, we can have a debate about the united states in a relative basis. about theoday triangular relationship also needs to come to grips with this triangle in a greater strategic context and it is not just the three of us.

it is a lot more than that. regard topoint, with relations between the united states, russia, china today. here i would have a different take then my colleague tom, where a do have more concerns. expressed -- then he had expressed. then we can have a conversation this evening. russia and china, the strategic relationship has evolved since the 1990's. call the axis of convenience and now it is a strategic partnership. there are arms sales from russia to china that continue. military to military dialogs. joint exercises. i don't want to overstate that. there is an idea about trying to cooperate globally to preclude

the united states from gaining global hegemony. it turns out they have their own differences about how to operationalize that in different parts of the world. something that is understated and i will finish here, is that i do believe 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 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 the democratic subversion of their grips on power. thank you. i like that there is disagreement. >> so that we can mix it up. i want to get back to this issue of the trilateral relationship

and whether we are in a uni-polar world -- in the cold war era, we were obviously -- we thought of ourselves in a bipolar world. the introduction of china into that wouldnship -- be important globally in a few decades. it is interesting to think about , when he made that decision in ,he context of a bipolar world here we are in 2017. a courseently teaching last spring and i mentioned to students at stanford that i thought we were in a uni-polar to try to trigger a reaction. the reaction was, what?

half of our students are foreign students in this program. , no, werspective was are in a multipolar world, the united states is not as powerful as it once was. i happen to be working on a book now about russia resurgence and how they understand power. another argument was that china is now overtaking the united states in terms of its percentage of the global economy. and russia has stayed relatively flat, around 3% of the global is now up china around 26% and the united states is at 19% of the global economy. gdp,is not per capita where the united states is still a leader but china has long been said is on the rise. it may be cresting now. , still mored states

thenful, then keep -- these two countries, what does power mean in 2017? and russia is much poorer is very dependent on oil revenues for its budget. what we talking about now in the united states is how to shake the foundations of american democracy by allegedly hacking into the democratic national committee and possibly even into local electoral offices. what kind of world are we in? is it now multipolar? are these the three big powers that we should be thinking of and watching and this trilateral relationship? is it important? is the u.s. still the preeminent power?

david, you're looking at me. you made the mistake of making eye contact. [laughter] >> i 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 and what will it look like? if and when it emerges? discussion isof on this, i am not sure what it would look like. we are not in the old system. bipolar, it is not the unipolar moment that was invoked after the collapse of the soviet union. it is not quite multipolar. it is trending in that direction. and their meeting in early this month, vladimir putin and xi jinping called for a multipolar system.

the fact that they are calling for it means we are not quite there at least to their satisfaction. yes, we canhing is, talk about the triangle and i think it is important but yes, india is potentially an anonymously important power in the coming decades. enormously important power in the coming decades. the european union is powerful but they are trying to cope with their own problems. japan is also preoccupied with problems. we are seeing a world where we shouldn't and i agree, we shouldn't focus just on the three -- this triangle -- it is a broader picture. that is one thing. , theecond thing is that

first thing is that it 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, when we think of china today, it is not china in 1969. when we think of russia today, it is not russia of 1970. things are much more open. yes they are authoritarian but technology has made an anonymous change. information technology. not like thoses years where it was difficult to find out information about what was going on outside the soviet union. now everyone has access to the internet. very high internet use in russia. are in china and yes, there websites that are blocked, more so in china than russia if i

understand but nevertheless, clever people find ways around those. the category of a state and the kind of control a state can being challenged by technology. that is another factor of great importance. thing, whether president trump is a symptom or a cause of a shift in american , atking about world order least some of his statements have called into doubt two of the very important pillars on which the liberal order that the u.s. largely created after world war ii created, namely alliances , nato or the commitments of south korea and japan, an issue has been raised. agreements, trade which are also extremely important to american policy.

we don't know, will there be a reaction to this? his is a symptom of longer-term change? that is always the question when you're in the middle of change. you do not know what is transitory or long-term. those are issues that we have to confront. is, save fortion u.s. policy or russian or chinese policy is, what kind of world order do we want? wouldind of relationships we like to have with china in 10 years? or with russia in 10 years? what is the most advantageous to the united states? o'er each country has to think in that sense of itself. what degrees of cooperation are important? are we headed for protectionism? which i doubt we are heading for

in a very serious way but nevertheless these issues are raised. one'own position one has to have some sense of what would be acceptable or more than acceptable world order to foresee. in 15 years, let's say president nixon is looking 15 years ahead. can we do that? >> great question. carl, do you want to look 15 years ahead? andhe question about russia china and the united states assessing the relations now through different indicators. in the area of defense military you would get metrics on economy. spends withtates its defense budget 40% of the world's total on military spending. the united states of america.

china is number two. it is 15% of global spending. coming up steadily. russia is number three. military spending is not the sole indicator. very important as what is that money being spent on and what context and what kind of contingencies. it is true in the case of russia that we have a very sharp difference of security concern. those are mostly on rush upon periphery. in eastern europe to an extent in the caucuses, historical interest in syria and the middle east and vladimir putin is playing that out. it is because of the expansive russian territory, as russia looks at its borders, in a sense, it is global in its security concerns. china, china in

terms of how it looks at its security, is primarily an asian power at this point. it is starting to get asian interest -- world interests that it is primarily concerned with maritime claims in the pacific. in the united states, we are 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, two and three, but the other 10, led by the united states are either allies of the united states were close partners and friends of the united states. second point on the economy, theerine had led with that, united states and china together, we are 40% of the world's gdp right now and 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, we concentrated on military and , like the soviet union, it is playing a week economic hand. eak economic hand. the third point would be on soft power to bring to bear. states, still today with all our difficulties, still is pretty inspirational. there is no inspirational chinese model. some talk about a development model. no one embraces a chinese political model. the same is true for russia. at times, especially as we have difficulties at this moment in our history, we contend to start

to take stock of our fears and not recognize, still today, how .trong that soft power is if the united states still wants to show the leadership to continue to try to manage the remarkable set of economic and diplomatic institutions in place i the end of world war ii, -- had a trip to singapore several years ago. i met with a very good singapore diplomat who tom knows well. about theing to tommy united states in asia and worrying about competing with china. i asked what his advice? the train my military background, i thought he would say that you need to get three more aircraft carriers out there. you need to get the new york philharmonic orchestra here. [laughter] that was his point entirely.

deploy the orchestra. representing what is very good about the united states in terms of who we are as a people in these institutions we have established. >> tom, do you want to comment? >> i do. i would like to address the question. i think these are important points. their underscoring and challenging. what kind of a world is it, that it is certainly not bipolar. sometimes it is more bipolar, it depends on the issue. on what the relevant questions are. sometimes no one is in charge and it is a free-for-all. but to pick up on points that carl was making. e as theink of a pol

organizing center about which other countries align themselves in groups. u.s. alarm the system has no equal. nothing even close. -- north one ally korea, that does not add much to their power. russia has i think only syria. if that qualifies as an ally. we are going to think about military power and the uses of elements of national power which is not just fighting ability. of amount of transparency interoperability, conductivity, integration that is necessary to underscore these alliances.

they are terribly important to political integration, to economic integration. the second type of courses economic integration. back in president nixon's day, it was a bipolar world. the free world and the liberal order or you were in the soviet, socialist order of technology transfer, investment, economic integration or you are in a very large category of the nonaligned states that floundered. now there is one game in town. that is the liberal order. the extension of what was the free world order. almost all countries participate in it almost all benefit from it. it is a rules-based order. not an ideologically-based order. the interconnections and

overlapping relationships are very numerous. the third, soft power. the power to attract. how do we assert this? the u.s. still has a enormous soft power. people would like to be like us. they would like to have their political act together better than we do now but the total package of individual freedoms, civil rights, human rights detections, political participation, economic participation, military strength -- who would you be like? more the united states than china or russia. there is not much positive appeal there. tiesmportance of economic enormouslyremains

dependent on the united states and on the united states allies. for its sustained economic growth. largest trading partner of most countries in the world. made, seldom often made is the 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. go?h way do dependencies experts come to the united states. exports go to the united states, japan, and south korea.

80% with the european union. 7% of u.s. exports go to china. that is a very disproportionate kind of interdependence and for china and for russia, they cannot do much for one another. accelerate,eally sustain, transform their economic strength or ability to bring prosperity or fundamentally change their military capabilities. they both need factors and relationships available in the west. and more broadly. china --f russia and they seek to gain advantages by closer withby being each other?

of course they do. look at the hard numbers. i would disagree with catherine. it is a different set of numbers. numbers, thek shared economy is 24%. that is down a 2% since 1979 when china began its rise. we of dropped 2%. china's share of world economy world bank numbers is about 17% which is almost exactly the same share a's chai population. 4.5%, inchieved with the u.s., of the world population. the indicator gap is widening. >> yes.

ppp, that means purchasing power parity. if you bought goods in china or whata, trying to compare those would cost relatively speaking. i would use that -- i was using those numbers, not gross domestic product numbers. but undeniably, china is on the part of thenly the rise of mr. trump and populism in the united states, a concern that we do not make anything in the united states anymore. and we lost manufacturing instead this is being outsourced to places like china but also to other countries in southeast asia that may be producing more cheaply than we can in the united states. that is a concern.

i also wanted to ask, get at the issue of soft power. that carl raised. the power to attract as opposed to force. chinank about the rise of , if there is a rise, we think about a resurgence of russia. certainly more aggressive foreign-policy -- i want to raise the issue that perhaps, that russia has more allies in china, that they have more be one.turkey could another budding autocracy. syria, not exactly a winner but to russia it is important. because it is reinserting interest in the middle east. a concern that the united states was running roughshod and that mr. putin was making a mess of the middle east. is now anxious to

sell more arms to them than it has in the past. brazil, a key country that russia wants a relationship with. putin has more recently presented russia as a conservative populist alternative to hedonistic, gay europe. it is anti-liberal and probably proudly so. there is a certain pull to that. in turkey. it is also developed sophisticated methods that we have felt in the united states inserting the-- opinions of the russian government into our own political discourse. i'm surprised because i watch russia today, rt, you may not know that that is russia today.

started their own network called ukraine tomorrow. present in some ways a totle and slick alternative u.s.-western-liberal perspective on the world and in this broadcast globally, if you are in dubai, you can see it. you can see it on your local cable package -- here. i've had the pleasure of being trolled on twitter by russian trolls. that isking, one person important is doubtful that the russians have this capability and mr. putin told him that they don't and if they did they would never be caught. orderis this poll of versus the chaos of europe and

migration and too open societies. one could argue that there is this soft power component that russia has but in a way that the soviet union did not. the dispute in a bipolar world between the soviet union and the u.s. was one of communism versus capitalism. that is not the dispute now. it is one of conservatism and order versus liberalism run a mock and disorder. i wonder about that. i wonder if you are worried about that and whether it makes a difference that these are autocracies. and china are the same kind of authoritarian governments? and the united states the -- is it still the shining light on the hill that it once was. is the presence internationally of the u.s., does it have the

same power? do we have the same poll that we did in the 1970's and 1980's -- the same pull? carl, you made eye contact. [laughter] a couple of points. , and itsrd to russia friends and its appeal, i hesitate sitting between two very distant which russia experts. the history of russia would those on its borders which have long histories with russia, i don't believe that it has a lot of appeal. if you look at how eastern toope is reacting, trying

get nato to be more involved. we have hungary, authoritarian rollbacks worried arguably. >> ok, but not pushing towards moscow. if you look at the caucuses, if 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. because none of the central asian republics particularly persuaded by the models of either by sharing -- beijing or moscow responding to chinese investment going into central asia in a big way. so 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. at one time it was part of the soviet union. i think there will be contradictions between russia and china geopolitically in that region. nevermind the models. can it be optimistic at looking -- i tend to be optimistic in looking at the united states and looking at our way of government. looking at the european model, our traditions. at the end of the day, 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 more staying power than the rule 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

have our hit -- head in the sand. as we look at china, do we say , smugly that is a system that , is doomed to fail? for about 40 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. whether 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. there are things which we should perhaps emulate. when i looked the money china is putting into research and development of i worry about that. in my view -- development, i -- it's a dual problem. 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. yes he is a strong demand and , that strongman and a strong leader -- he is a strongman and a 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?

here we have an example of success -- a successful ruler. 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 russian government actually gave 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. failure of institutions, failure of structure, totally inadequate state administration, the fact that people -- civil society is not allowed to take any kind of

initiative. absolutely scathing criticism of the existing order and russia. it is not saying we would be fine if only the sanctions were lifted and so on. what he is offering is not based on different principles. it is recommending good management 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. i do not think 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. there is a whole critique 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. the revolutions in georgia and ukraine are seen as extremely dangerous for russia. after the orange revolution, i

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 we are very weak now, but russia is condemned to be a great power. the second is the sense of the fragility of the social basis of the order that might be threatened by democratic ideas. i think in china, i do not know.

if my colleagues have not seen it as a threat that they certainly move against western ideas coming in. i think, if i can manage one more we talk about the collapse point, of the soviet union. we think of the collapse of the soviet union was a total natural process. of course people would choose freedom area but such freedom. but the way it is regarded in russia or china is to take it very seriously. especially in china that has relevance to our regime. what was it that caused the soviet union collapsed -- two collapse -- to collapse? the conclusion that has been drawn is that weak leadership and the dangers of trying to begin to reform 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. >> i want to tie together some 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. among the consequences of that is we still have the old thinking of international relations. if someone is rising, someone else must be going down. it is clear that is not what 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 frenemies. 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. how we can help shape that 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 complicated and -- to complicating. the u.s., in my judgment, clearly does not have the attraction that we once did. that is our fault. that is not the fault of somebody else.

it does not mean that somebody else has gotten more traction than we do. it reflects the somewhat chaotic 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 complacent 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. it gives us to conflict -- dooms us to conflict. with china or with washed -- russia. ofhave enormously more areas cooperation with china do we had areas of conflict. we have far fewer with russia. we could talk about the reason, but the possibilities are greater. it is a good thing. it is a good thing that china and russia have better relations than they have had in a long time. that is a stabilizing factor. >> ok, great. thank you. in fact one of our colleagues has written a book about russia

and the united states with respect to nuclear power. jonathan, i know you have the microphone open. >> thank you very much. i will take a couple questions from the audience. let's start by asking. we have three pretty big personalities. , russiang donald trump been vladimir putin. how did these big personalities play a role in influencing trilateral relations? >> who wants to take that? ok. i made eye contact. so, i actually think -- i will just comment on putin and trump. , as i met vladimir putin think david has. i think this matters to a significant degree.

as a coldhearted social scientist, i was trained to think that personalities don't matter and states have interest, not friends. we have interest, ultimately. clearly, this matters a great deal, relationships matter a great deal to the current president of the united states. and he wants people to like him. and he evidently wants vladimir putin to like him. case, i doat is the not know. i'm not a psychologist. i think that mr. putin is intrigued. he is many things. we can use negative adjectives about him, but one thing mr. putin is not, is stupid. he's very smart. he's not necessarily strategic, but tactically he's very smart. i think he will use mr. trump's seemingly eagerness to be liked

and to be friends to russia's advantage. mr. putin is always cognizant about what russian interests are. and right now that is getting rid of sanctions. they very much want those .anctions off one way that they are not helping is in attracting russian investment. as david mentioned, the best russia can do in the future is to grow by 2% each year. a have not hit that yet. they are at .5% for this quarter. the only way russia is going to grow from what has happened in the past, which is the huge spike in global oil prices, which doesn't look imminent, is to get rid of sanctions. 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. my guess is that mr. putin will run, even though he's kind of not sure. he has to win. i predict that he will. you have to make it look legitimate. right? so, 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. frankly. they actually will need to see real income go up, or his ability to maintain order and

stability in the country and regime he has built -- he benefits from those around him immediately from the state. they must perform. there is domestic politics involved in their international stance. so i would say the relationship , matters. my concern as someone who watches russia is that we have a political neophyte as our president. he is very confident and perhaps overly confident in dealing with mr. putin. who has been in office for 17 years. and quite successfully. who really knows what his country's interests are. 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. >> maybe say a word about the

u.s. china relations -- relationship. point number one, it's right clear that chinese senior leadership were hopeful that donald trump would win. secretary clinton was extraordinarily unpopular with chinese senior leadership. she was looked at as the architect of america's rebalance to asia. 2011 -- 2012. i think that they were happy when they saw that the roulette -- what the election results are. xi jinping is facing a very 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?

so 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. clearly that's in his mind. the third point is with regard to president trump. i think that as many world leaders right now, xi jinping is looking at president trump. and they have heard a lot of rhetoric, a lot of policy goals stated. but they are 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. and if not many are being realized, at some point they are going to begin to discount. there is one other aspect of the administration that everyone here knows you there's -- knows.

there's 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, not only with china, but all of our partners around the world, xi jinping does not micromanage chinese foreign-policy. putin russiandent policy, nor does president trump . no one is able to micromanage policy. politicians the diplomats, , soldiers, intelligence, those are the ones who go out and take the broadvision and implement. right now, the seats are empty. and i think that is worrisome. to get back to xi jinping, i know he has a bureaucracy telling him that they are not certain right now what the policy is of the united states. generally 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. do? nathan, what should we >> question in the back row. >> president obama reportedly told president-elect, that north korea would be his single most difficult foreign-policy issue in his first term as president. how do you understand how russia china, to what extent they are willing to help the united states or understand or to what extent does the president understand how brought the korean issue is with the president? is it in their interest, ultimately, to get the solution that is favorable to united states or to let it fester with

the possibility that things might get out of control? >> great question. tom? >> let me take the china peace of it. -- piece of it. north korea is truly an intractable problem. there are no good options. there are no magic lit -- bullet solutions. it is what i have worked from -- worked on 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. china has more leverage over north korea than anybody else. that am three dollars will get you a cup of coffee. -- and three dollars will get

you a cup of coffee. they do not have enough leverage to produce results. the chinese worry that in trying to pressure or prod an outcome around nuclear weapons, around the nature of the regime, 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. danger of use of conventional weapons that can escalate into nuclear exchange. the need for cooperation in managing diplomatic dimensions of this, the human suffering

dimensions of this. china, the united states, russia have to play a collective role. but at the moment, there is a lack of willingness to talk in 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. the bottom line is we need to 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 or not doing, but not to have

low expectations. -- very high expectations. >> if i could say something about the russian attitude, which has received much less attention than the chinese. and i think for good reasons. i think russia, although it has an interest -- this is a worrying issue, but it is really china who has the major role to 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. another, which some of my specialist friends tell me is

more important than we think, for china to cooperate in moving against north korea is difficult because for all the hostility that exists tween them, it is in -- an ally and another communist state. but also 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.

but on the security front they , are happy to have a quiet and good relationship with china. they would not want to get out russia would play some role and it wouldn't be in their interest to oppose what the chinese want given the current state of relations between russia and china. briefly, to follow-up on what david had said back to the chinese perspectives. whether it is the united states, russia, china, they all agreed that the polarization of the grand peninsula is in the country's global interest. the idea of putting a premium on stability between the united states, china, russia is well.

the uncertainty of collapse of the north korean regime, chaos will follow. the russian worry is that the peninsula be reunified. so about north korea, a reunified peninsula. they would celebrate for 24 hours and start worrying about china. over the next 5, 10, 15 or 20 years. worry about the korean peninsula that they have seen. if it should be chaos, if it should read -- lead to reunification, the u.s. is an ally. i think it would be worrisome to the russians. a final footnote to this, we enjoyed bytriangles the tours of military duty in the korean peninsula.

we talk about china, the united states, russia, south korea. at the end of the day, any u.s. policy is only going to go as far as our democratic republic of korea allies want us to go because they are the ones that live in the neighborhood. >> getting back to tonight's theme, if president trump articulated anything both in the campaign, i think it is safe to say he wanted a more confrontational approach to china. controversially, perhaps a less confrontational approach to russia. year, he had on a russian journalist whose name escapes me. remarkably, he did not think that would go very far because he thought the approach

to china was so terribly important. if he takes the kind of go it alone approach, america first, i think all of us would agree that i think that the chinese clearly like the current world order. and i think it is ironic that thou those has become symbolic of world order. speaker.te president xi. let me just say something about their russian attitude to president trump. there was a lot of coverage in our press about, i think champagne bottles being opened when the election results came in. yes, they were.

in december, after the election, nobody i talked to took that point of view. .hey said we are very uncertain he says nice things but we don't know what that means. when i think the best and most ivorable prognostication aard is that we might have short time and issues will emerge. it is not a honeymoon at all.

into alloing to go that complicated. >> to frame the issue, one of that made the 2016 was that theual business community which, for was theministrations, strongest advocate of stability in u.s. china relations. have your rhetoric for elections, but afterwards, it's about money. it's about costs. what the business community did is basically said this out. they are not happy with xi's china first policy.

the theft of intellectual according to national treatment and investment. 2025.n china, in some ways, affecting america. there really are some fundamental issues having to do with reciprocity. they are global issues because of the approach the united states is followed in 1947 and 1948. it made our partner strong, our alliances strong. clearly said, why are we still doing that? richernot getting anymore. , itdemand for reciprocity

is a legitimate target. that, whichill see is different from the kind of campaign examples that mr. trump used. but it is going to be there. it's hard for me to imagine mr. trump making issues human rights. the defensive constitutionalism. it does not seem to be high on -- igenda and i'm sure don't see a prospect for , the mainlandy making it an issue.

the key is economic the abilitynce and to collaborate on a whole range of transactional issues. either a part of every problem or must be a part of any solution. it goes on and on. if we really don't have any sensible prospect except to got a cluei haven't the way mr. trump wants us to jump. >> i have a suggestion. mostly geologist, and , i'm hearing the axes of centers of rotation and so on. if we think about looking at it from a distance and looking at

the centers of influence everywhere, you are putting out the three that is most obvious today. but what changes the rotation? what disturbs an axis of rotation? trump makes a lot of off-the-cuff notes. but it has an influence and it affects things. folks that are so generous with your thoughts, i hope that we can keep old folks like us to keep an eye on it and warn youngsters that, look, the rotation is changing. so read the news and keep an eye on it and listen to those that have experience. i am glad you are here and very

appreciative of you being here. [applause] >> thank you for being here. my question is more related to long-term, not necessarily the current situation. what elements would help the u.s. maintain its allies? what are your thoughts? >> who wants to open that up? i have thoughts. >> a think karl pointed at an earlier, -- added earlier. karl pointed at it earlier.

we have this political paralysis. when we can't seem to address issues, fixing the problems in our health care system, aging infrastructure to an inadequate education system. a failure to retrain people that have been displaced by jobs andn, movement of other location. these are fixable problems. we have it in our financial and political capacity that we need to do it for ourselves. ourselves, wer go, in my view, a long way brandishing credentials in the international system. of the magnetic

field of soft power. and have the capacity to provide the kinds of leadership that the world really needs. i have been interacting with china literally since the thatpong initiative followed president nixon's trip in 1972. was, the united states must continue to lead. we are not ready to lead. no one else is ready to lead. if we make the proposal, it is dead on arrival because we make .t

it has been a diffusion, other test partners on other parts of the world.

one would be given that. our standing, economically, it may be one where we come down further. that is prioritization. the 50's, 60's, or 70's, that we could move anywhere at will. those days i think our over. the middle east, parts of the world, should we be more discriminating. and regional powers with much more vested interest. the second point, with the use of force. the many accomplishments.

>> in the move towards the forces, president and the than, he lived long enough to see how magnificent our armed forces became. i worry that far removed from this creation in 1972 and 1973, we have had several changes of 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 that we had a conscript force or a draft force, would we have gone in 2003? the case could be made, maybe not.

mothers and fathers of the calling of their congressman asking, what is this about? 9/11, wears after would not have 100,000 troops in afghanistan, which we did. the reason is because it is an all volunteer force. mothers and fathers, they don't call because it is all volunteer. this breaking of the tissue between the american people, i --worry about increasingly not to say the volunteer force model is at all a mistake. but as a nation we have to start thinking about this. so that we don't end up with the phenomena that we have today in which one fourth of the all .olunteer force was established

the amount of military deployments in the combat zones that we did before the volunteer force. this is something, to get back to your question, that needs to be addressed. we also need to think about our face to the world right now. , there's a lot of the world that sees the primary face of the united states. in battle groups, marines, and aircraft carriers. >> thank you to our distinguished panel. let's give them a round of applause. [applause] thank you for your enlightening