same weather about the same time of year the transit of the university of michigan diag to go to mike oxenberg's class on chinese political thought. mike didn't waste all his time with ungrateful undergraduates, but as many of you know, he went on to be carter's senior director for asia study and to spearhead the china normalization effort. mike, among the many things that he taught us, he emphasized the intellectual rigor and honesty and also for unnecessary modesty in appreciating what we don't and can't know in trying to understand china's instincts and motives. i think he would look at the study as a durable contribution to the literature in this area, and it would meet mike's high standards, and for that i commend you all. i think this is an important contribution to the literature. matt, let me start with you. in your, listening to your overview most all of us appreciate that china is not the place where the internal incentive structure permits people to walk around and have free and unfettered views of who's in charge here anyway and how does this really work. those are dangerous conversa