I want to encourage you, in the time remaining, to jump up right away with questions. Give me a hand anyone who's got questions. We want to give you the opportunity to exchange ideas and views with the Dean. Please. >> My name is Marissa, I'm from Fairfax, Virginia. And I was wondering, in issues like climate change, that are so global. >> Mm-hm. >> Do you think that the U.S. and China will have to deal with these bilaterally, or will these be issues that must be dealt with through international treaties? >> wow, what an excellent question, because I think you're already implying that as complicated as the bilateral relationship is, if we then start adding third parties, fourth parties, fifth parties, sixth parties, and so forth, it becomes even more complicated, so yes, you're absolutely right. So, you can take my essentially bilateral model of the U.S. China relationship and then start adding additional angles and actors, and you can see how it will be very complicated, will be a very, very mixed picture. And it would be very difficult to describe it in simple terms like, essentially cooperative or essentially confrontational or essentially competitive. But great question, thank you. >> My name is Casey Duncan and I'm a fourth from Williamsburg. I was actually wondering, do you believe that internal issues such as an aging demographic or a lack of transparency could ultimately lead to the rise of China to plateau and or decrease? And if so, how do you think that that should affect our diplomatic relations with the country? >> Well certainly, in that sense, the future of China, the future of its internal economy, its internal society, its domestic politics, is a critically important driver in this relationship and indeed, a driver in China's dealings with its neighbors and the rest of the, the rest of the world. I think that we need here also, a complex analysis. There tend to be, as in the case of the analysis of the bilateral relationship, there tends to be the temptation to engage in nice, simple clear alternative scenarios. China will collapse, The Coming Collapse of China, a book written by Gordon Chang. When China Rules the World. An equally powerful title coming to a profoundly opposite conclusion. And what I think we need more of is less these headline grabbing simple scenarios, whether again, positive or negative, scenarios that are probabilistic and contingent. That is where we say, we don't know for sure. We think that there is this level of probability of this outcome, and a different level of probability for that one. And the probabilities will shift, depending on which contingencies occur over time. Having said that, I would agree with the premise of half of your statement. And that is that China's growth will plateau, or at least will begin to slow and level off. We're already beginning to see that happen. It is a common phenomenon, even for the most rapidly growing economies. In part, that will be the result of demographic change. The growing shortage of people of working age. Making it less possible to engage in labor intensive growth. And the growing grain of the Chinese population making it necessary to devote more resources to basically solving the problems of social security and healthcare rather than investing in more productive capability. So that leveling off, that slowing down will occur. But whether it will lead to more serious problems would require the kind of probabilistic and contingent analysis which I would be happy to give Professor Warburg at some other time. >> My name is Michael, a third-year from Ashburn, Virginia. Many of the relationships between Washington, Beijing, and Taipei have been described as a security triangle, with each country wary of developments between two others leaving them vulnerable. However, Professor Womack here at the University of Virginia describes these changing relationships as more of a cooperative triangle. I was curious to get your opinion of the security triangle and if you believe that this could become more of a cooperative endeavor. >> Mm, 'kay, well, those are two slightly different different alternatives. The cooperative triangle and the and the security triangle. I don't think that it is a security triangle. In the same way that we talked about the US-Soviet-Chinese security triangle in the, in the Cold War. Because neither side really has the ability or the intention to kind of be the pivot and to shape the relationship between the other, the other two in the same way as occurred, as occurred then. So I don't see it as a strategic triangle in any event. Is it becoming a more cooperative relationship? Yes, to some degree. And we do see great expansion of cross grates, economic and social ties. A significant reduction at the same time of political and military tensions between the two sides of the, of the Taiwan Strait. So, in that sense, the cross-straight relationship, with its implications for the United States, is becoming somewhat more positive, but the basic underlying structural problem remains, and I'll state it very baldly. China wants Taiwan to unify with the rest of the country. Taiwanese are increasingly developing a separate identity where they regard themselves as Taiwanese not as Chinese. And see China as a different country with which they don't want to integrate, with which they do not want to unify. Think of the example of Canada and the U.S., for example. Highly interdependent. A security community in which the chances of war are basically infinitesimal. But do Canadians want to unify with the United States? I don't think so. And if that were a fundamental objective of American policy towards Canada, we'd have trouble in U.S. Canada relations as well. So I think that there is the possibility of a flare up again. If Taiwan begins to move towards independence or is perceived as doing so by Beijing, or if it simply refuses to negotiate, refuses to come to the table, which Beijing has already said is a condition, a possible trigger for the use of force. That would be one contingency. The other contingency where Beijing in effect looks at its collective watch and says time's up. And basically, you have got to you've got to come to the to the table. So those are the kinds of trigger effect, events, although they are of declining probability, that could still produce a crisis given this structural, this structural difference between Taiwan and China. Another way of putting it, a simpler way of putting it, is that both Taiwan and China are satisfied with the status quo. So is the United States, but for none of them is the status quo the first choice. For each of them, the status quo is the second choice. That is not a stable situation over the long term. >> I'm going to use the prerogative of the Chair to ask the last question. Dean Harding, we begin and end the class by imagining the year 2030. And we used it the CIA GT2030 exercise as, as a framing exercise. I'm going to invite you to, to give us a rosy scenario. It's 2030. These young men and women are running the country. >> Mm-hm. >> Taking very good care of us in our dotage. Um,and the US-China relationship is going well. What is it that we've done now that set the US and PRC to have a greater emphasis on cooperation and less on competition in 2030? >> Now, that's a great way of phrasing the question kind of presuming the outcome. Understanding that it may not happen but to ask how might it have happened. Well, I think that the first, prerequisite is basically to apply the Hippocratic do, oath that doctors have to take, do no harm. In other words, we don't want the relationship to undergo another significant disruption. It's not fragile anymore. I wrote a book by that title back in 1992. It's now much more resilient, but even resilient situations can begin to break down if they are subjected to a continued series of shocks. So, neither side should really harm the relationship. They should to what they can to promote cooperation, and minimize confrontation. To pick their issues, make their red lines clear, and avoid confrontation to the degree possible. That's number one. The more positive side would be to really build examples of mutually beneficial cooperation. And to really begin to whittle away at the mistrust that has developed on the part of those on both sides who say cooperation doesn't work. The other side cheats. The other side free rides. It betrays its promises. And so forth. So, a record of cooperation as well as an avoidance of confrontation would be two. And the third would be the development of further development and honoring of further rules of competition in areas where that is not yet complete. We have the rules on trade. We don't yet have them adequately in terms of investment. We don't have them adequately in terms of cyber security. We don't have them adequately in terms of more conventional forms of of security. So we need to work on those so that the competition is managed. So, if we can do all those things, and I would add importantly from the American perspective, if there is an evolution in China in the direction not just of greater prosperity but of greater freedoms of various kinds for the Chinese people. That will begin to reduce the differences in value that I've indicated as a structural problem in the relationship. So, if we get to where you think we might be, or hope that we would be in 2030, those would be some of the things that would have happened, or would not have happened in the meantime. That's my sense of how we might get there from here. Thank you so much for that and thanks for you leaving us on a high note. Thank you, Dean Harding. [APPLAUSE].
