should play is kenneth lieberthal. senior director for asia on the national security council in the clinton administration and now a senior fellow at the brookings institution. and michael auslin, a resident scholar of asian studies at the american enterprise institute he also writes a column for the "wall street journal." gentlemen, thank you for being here. kenneth lieberthal, i'd like to start with you first. how significant are china's action now? this is obviously more than a few acres of sand in the middle of the sea. >> it is but it's something less than moving populations off land. it's not the occupation of the sedatin land, nothing like that. building platforms in the c i think so in part to reassert china's claims to disputed territory but also potential military use in the future. i think the real danger will be if they put a lot on these islands that give them especially an air force capability that may lead them to declare what's called an air defense identification zone over the c. over the south china s