風蕭蕭_Frank
以文會友
肖恩.斯坦：“強大的中國對世界有益，弱小的中國對世界不利”，這句話我們以後可能再也聽不到了！/中美競爭/台灣/南海/習近平/關稅戰/貿易戰
黑白碎片 2025年8月31日
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HIHBfbZ9YI?
2025.4月，美中貿易全國委員會會長肖恩·斯坦在一次演講和談話活動中提到中美關係，梳理當前中美激烈的競爭關係的成因和脈絡。完整版視頻鏈接：
US-China Education Trust 2025年4月25日
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CexXxs_ICc4&t=2788s
USCET 很榮幸能與美中關係全國委員會 (NCUSCR) 合作，將這一重要活動帶到華盛頓特區的當地社區，青年中國觀察家 (YCW) 是我們的共同讚助商。今年 USCET 的當地討論會邀請了美中貿易全國委員會會長 Sean Stein 作為我們的特邀演講嘉賓。
由 NCUSCR 組織的“中國市政廳”是一個全國性項目，旨在全麵概述當前的美中關係及其當地影響，從而影響全國各地社區的討論。通過將當地觀眾與美國政策製定者和中國問題頂尖專家聯係起來，該項目促進了就這一重要雙邊關係進行知情對話。
2025 年“中國市政廳”深入探討了特朗普總統新任期內的對華政策，匯集了頂尖專家，分析不斷變化的美中關係動態。小組成員包括布魯金斯學會約翰·桑頓中國中心主任 Ryan Hass；胡佛研究所訪問學者馬修·特平 (Matthew Turpin) 和《華爾街日報》首席中國記者魏玲玲。此錄音可在 NCUSCR 頻道觀看。
USCET is proud to partner with the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations (NCUSCR) to bring this important event to our local community in Washington, D.C., with Young China Watchers (YCW) as a co-sponsor. This year’s local discussion at USCET featured Sean Stein, the president of the US-China Business Council, as our distinguished guest speaker.
The CHINA Town Hall, organized by the NCUSCR, is a nationwide program that offers a comprehensive overview of the current U.S.-China relationship and its local impact—shaping discussions in communities across the country. By connecting local audiences with U.S. policymakers and leading experts on China, the program fosters informed dialogue on this vital bilateral relationship.
The 2025 CHINA Town Hall featured an in-depth discussion on President Trump’s China policy in his new term, bringing together top experts to analyze the evolving U.S.-China dynamic. Panelists included Ryan Hass, Director of the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution; Matthew Turpin, Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution; and Lingling Wei, Chief China Correspondent at The Wall Street Journal. This recording can be watched on NCUSCR's channel.
Hello everyone. Oh, there we go. Hello everyone. Uh, I want to thank each and
every one of you for coming to the uh the China town hall um being held by uh
the US China uh national committee on US China relations. Uh and we are co-ho uh
this event is being co-hosted today by the US China Education Trust and Young China Watchers DC chapter. Uh so uh very
excited to have all of you here today to come join us for this uh very timely
conversation about US China uh relations under the first 100 days of the Trump
administration. Um uh I to wanted to start us off uh give a brief introduction to uh young China watchers.
Uh we are a uh volunteer organization uh set up to try to bring up the next
generation of China experts uh but also uh China enthusiasts, people who have an
interest in in learning more about the world and learning more about China uh both on its own and in terms of how the
US is relating to it. Um we have young in the name but we don't have an age
cutoff date. So I uh highly encourage all of you to sign up for our email
list. We do a variety of events. Uh some speaking with uh some distinguished
experts like we have today. Uh but also we do film
screenings, cultural events, museum tours uh and occasionally happy hours to meet other people who are interested in
these same subjects. Um and uh so uh with that I will hand things off to
Rosie and um uh thank you once again. Um, oh actually before I hand it off, I
would like to give a very special thanks to Rosie Lavine who is wearing two hats today and uh it is largely thanks to her
efforts that we are are here today. So a big thank you to Rosie.
Um and thank you guys all so much for coming. We were um my name is Rosie
Lavine. I'm the executive director of the US China Education Trust. And as Ann mentioned, I'm dual hating today. I am
also on the leadership team of Young China Watchers DC chapter. Um we're really excited to have this event u take
place. Um we uh this could not be more timely. Um I'm sure everyone is is as
eager as I am to hear Sean's uh take on uh the Trump administration economic policy um and US China relations. I'll
just do a few housekeeping notes and just give folks a bit of an intro on the US China Education Trust and a little
bit of just how today is going to work. Um, so one note is that this is on the record and reported. So just so
everyone's aware of that as we as we go into the discussion. Um, the US China Education Trust is a 501c3 nonprofit
based here um at um in DC at George Washington University. Um we're a
nonprofit dedicated to advancing US China relations through um education and exchange for next generation leaders. So
through conferences, events, um gatherings, convenings, discussions, um both in the US and China, we seek to
help strengthen US understanding of China and vice versa, Chinese understanding of the US um mostly
through students and scholars in both directions. So um we are um
participating you and China watchers in this national event um the China Town
Hall organized by the National Committee on US China relations. We'll have a one-hour discussion here in person with
Sean. Um, and then following that, we'll um stream the broadcast the national
webinar that will feature the three speakers here, uh, Ryan Hos, uh, Matthew Chirpman, and L McWay. Uh, we encourage
folks to say for both. Uh, we understand people might need to go at the 6:30 mark. So, we'll keep our conversation um
you know, peppy and short and a 1-hour kind of um speed round with Sean, but then um if anyone needs to we'll we'll
have kind of a hard stop at 6:30, so we can join the national webcast and see that happening live. Um one more plug before we we get
to our main event here is that um at USET, we've just launched a new speaker series called China Connections. It's a
monthly program that features expertise on China um for US audiences here in the DC area. Um, our next panel will be in
honor of AAPI Heritage Month, a panel of uh leading AAPI experts on China,
talking about US China relations and their work analysis analysis on China, but also their identity and how that
impacts how they do their work. So, we hope folks will join us for that and you can um sign up for our email list for
more information. Um, so I think without further ado, I'll introduce our speaker
here, Sean. Um, Sean Stein is the president of the US China Business Council. He most recently served as the
board chair of the American Chamber of Commerce in China and as chair Amoridus of the American Chamber of Commerce in
Shanghai. Um he also co-chair co-chared the China public policy practice at Covington Burlington where he advised
international businesses on political risk, public affairs, communications and US China government relations. Um and
before that he served as three uh for nearly three decades as a US diplomat including in uh Shenyang and Shanghai at
the China State Department and brings an enormous amount of expertise on China to this conversation. Um so without further
ado I will turn the floor over to Sean for some introduction introductory comments. We can open up for Q&A after
that. Great. Thanks. Thank you very much Rosie. There's one person she forgot to Sorry, there's a cable there. someone
she forgots to introduce and it's the most important person here and it is the founder of USCT. Um you know first of
all before I before I get to that yeah no no no wait I can embarrass you more later but it's such an honor to do anything
with USCT because you know if you talk about organizations that have just done great and good and wonderful things in
the world it is USCT. So truly an honor to do anything with USCT. And so let's
give a round of applause to Ambassador Julia.
our PI. No, no. I So I met US
in 2010 at what then seemed like the end of the earth and now it really seems
like the end of the earth in Julian, China. We were probably actually in Chongchuin Chongu. Chongchuan. And um
and that was where I was interested. Since then, I've seen just all the amazing things they've done. Uh so anyway, really thank you for No, really.
Thank you. Thank you. Oh, I No, I just show up for stuff. No, this is good. You make things floppy. All right, so here's
what we're going to do, I think. Um, as you guys can see, I'm a little bit energetic today. So, it's been an
interesting week in US China. In fact, it's been an interesting tenure at USCBC in US China because I've just hit about
my hundth day. So, I I came in just in time for the for the for the for the joy
and the fireworks to begin. So, what I'm going to do is not what I had planned to do, but uh I'm going to talk a little
bit and it's going to be the world's fastest historical summary of USChina
relations because I need that because then I'm going to give the world's fastest summary of how we got to where we are and why we're now in this
position of being deadlocked with China. And I'm going to try and do that whole thing in seven minutes. Uh and so, can
everybody hear me? Yes. All right. So I think where we are in US China relations actually a lot of people say it started
back in 1973 with the visit of with with the visit or it started in 1979 with the
you know normalization of relations or maybe it started in 2000 with the WTO entry of China or some other time
period. That's not where I'm going to start. I'm going to start the story where China and US re-engaged when I started to work on US China as a young
analyst. Since we're doing this with the young analysts, young China watchers,
that's where we're going to start. And so I wanted to start off again by thanking them for using a picture of me from 2010 when I was being actually a
young China watcher. And now to fit in with all of you young China. Who's a young China watcher?
All right. The young China watchers do not wear ties. So I'm going to uh take that off. Okay.
Yes. So all right everyone can hear me. Okay. So the reason I'm starting with the Trump with the Obama administration
is because of the importance of history right now in the relationship. So for those of you who were alive back then um
the defining bit of US China during the with that administration I remember I was working on the China desk and all of
a sudden we started getting all these random inquiries about something I had never heard of because I was not as
urodite as all of you getting having us write papers on the Thusidities trap and
is it true and how can we refute it and how should we think about it what does it mean for policy and all these
requests would come from NSC staff and finally we were like well why do we care about all
of this and all is we have questions coming from on high and they were coming from the very top so apparently the
article that kicked all the stuff off about the thusidities trap came from the top and there was the idea about is it
true obviously not so how do we refute it and prove that it's not true uh so who knows what the thusidities trap is I
know Julia does all right one of our young analysis what is it uh basically a
situation where rising power and established power go into conflict due
to the one overlapping the other potentially right so you've got an established power and you've got a
rising power and eventually they meet and when they meet conflict right and so
this really animated the Obama administration they said how do we prove that this is not true but more importantly how do we prove to the world
that it's not true so in the first 100 days of Xi Jinping rising into his current position
Obama invites him to California to the Sunnylands estate and they talked about how are we going to refute this and what
are we going to do and so after two and a half days of talks they came out with sort of this vision and this approach
and this is when they said things that I thought we could never say again about the US China relationship that a strong China is good for the world and a weak
China is bad for the world or Obama saying that a rich China is good for the world and a poor China is bad for the
world. So this kind of idea but the animating philosophy then in the administration was that we need to work
together with China on so many things that China realizes that it does better
when it works with the United States and we can all partner and do stuff. So we spent the next three years trying to
find ways to do more partnerships and do more stuff with the Chinese. And at the same time, the philosophy was while
we're doing all this stuff together, let's put a ring fence around the stuff we don't agree on and let's not be too
critical. Let's not be too much pressure on that. Let's let all these other relationships grow and then they'll
realize this is where we should go. So, but then what happens is after three years of this, we do our three-year
policy analysis and we're like, what did we get from this great policy? And so, we had all of these metrics. How is
China doing getting along with its neighbors? How are we doing at working together on global issues? How about market access? How about human rights?
How about religious freedom? How about anything that people cared about? We had this long list of things that we were sort of evaluating. How are we doing on
all of this? And when we did the analysis, we were doing terribly. Almost
in no measure was the relationship with China or China doing any of the types of
things that we had thought would happen after this policy which was all carrots, no sticks and didn't work. But that was
an election year and in the election year you don't say, "Hey guys, we botched our China policy. Vote for
Hillary who is one of the architects of this policy." Right? So by the end of the administration, we realize this
approach of all carrots, no sticks, didn't work. Trump administration comes in, I'll fast forward to the second half of the Trump administration
to November 2017. And in November 2017, Trump goes
to China and he's frustrated with how things have gone. He's frustrated that the relationship hasn't improved. And
he's like, why? It's like, well, because China doesn't want anything. And there's a lot of reasons why China didn't want anything. But the strategy then became,
you know what, we're going to have to make China care. We need leverage on China. We're going to use some sticks to
get China and make China do what we want it to do. So, we have 18 months of a policy towards China, which was all
sticks and no carrots. And what happened, you know, so by the end of the
administration, we had the phase one trade deal. And we had the phase one trade deal. and most of us who had been sort of involved in all this kind of
felt like yeah that's kind of nice but really wasn't all that right so you now
are the Biden administration you come in and you're like a we are going to have a doover with China and you've got a lot
of people that were in Trump 1.0 and the Chinese look at all the people I'm sorry in Obama 1.0 know, and are like, "Hey,
you know, good times are back. We're going to cooperate on all this stuff." But the people who were there in the
Biden administration, who had been in the Obama administration, were like, "Well, you know, we tried carrots, that
didn't work. We tried sticks, that didn't work. What's left?"
Balance. Balance. Okay. Balance. All right. our young our young China
watchers. What's left if carrots don't work and sticks don't work?
Carrots. No, that wasn't part of the sticks. That was one of the sticks. Yeah. What else?
Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Sorry. Oh, you are not the young child. I am not.
We're not. Okay. So, so that was the question the Biden administration is
struggling to answer. If we can't use carrots and we can't use sticks, what do we do?
Divorce. Divorce. No, not yet. That comes later. So, what? Okay, one more.
Likeuring or kind of avoiding like making an alliance around I'll be I'll
be nicer. That's a very good answer. But no, what? So, the B administration
didn't know. So for the first six months of the B administration, they don't really talk very much about China, but they realize that, okay, carrots don't
work and sticks don't work. There's one thing left, and that's competition, right? In other words, we have to
recognize we're not going to shape China's behavior the way we think we can by being nice and giving carrots. And we
can't shape it by pressure and by sticks. So all we can do is compete. How
are we going to compete? We are going to invest in ourselves so we can compete better. We're going to do our infrastructure. We're going to do training. all these kind of things. We
are going to work with friends and allies around the world and this is going to supercharge our ability to compete and we're going to compete with
China. Well, you know, a lot of things sort of happened during the Biden administration and towards the end it was and the Chinese could legitimately
ask, well, if this is a competition, what kind of competition? Are we running a fair race or are we running a race
where we try and trip up each other, right? And so it got kind of messy towards the end where there was a lot more tripping than pure competition. But
that was the eminent guiding philosophy of the bid administration. We are in a strategic competition and we need to run
faster, do more, etc. So the bid administration the the
Trump 2.0 comes in and they're sort of looking at sort of these lessons of history and they're like but they took a
different lesson than the Obama administration. So their lesson was more about what we were talking back here.
And so now I think when they came in uh I remember talking to people who are now quite senior in the Trump 2.0
administration and I would ask them well what's the what's the idea and I remember very very clearly a
conversation with you know a senior confirmed official. He said you know we learned we made we made three mistakes
during Trump 1.0. I'm like three and those three would be we did not raise tariffs high enough.
we did not raise them fast enough and we did not raise them on enough goods and
okay and uh so what does that mean for the philosophy then of these people
coming in in the Trump administration uh their idea was not that we're you know need to be in this competitive mode per
se but that what we need is we need bigger sticks we need to use harder sticks we need to use them more effectively and more creatively and and
so that's kind of where we are right now and so for them we have uh a situation
where they felt like the sticks that got the results that they wanted, which was phase one from the Chinese were
essentially tariffs with a healthy dose of export controls and the occasional
sanction. And so right now the idea is let's go with what worked. So how we
start from there and get to where we are though I think is kind of a more interesting story. Um, and that is so
we've known from even before the administration came in that the US wanted to rebalance its relationship with China. It's concerned about a lot
of things. It's concerned about all the things that the Biden administration was concerned about, but also other things.
There are people who feel like China believes we're in a cold war, so therefore we should be in a cold war. They believe a variety of things like
this. And so what I feel is that we didn't have enough young China watchers
in the administration to maybe get some of the outcomes that were hoped for. And
so what I would sort of posit is that from the beginning there have been a number of pretty serious
misunderstandings or missed opportunities to read China and China's behavior that has then got us into this
sort of stalemate. And since I had given myself seven minutes, I'm going to do this really fast. So what happens? So
the president comes in and he wants to resolve several problems. Let's say the fentinil problem. So they use AIBA and
they put tariffs on China. Now before the first fentinel tariffs go into effect, the Chinese had already given a
proposal to the US government that I thought looked very credible but maybe it wasn't uh on what they were going to
do about fentinel. So they give this to the US government but they know that that the president is going to do things
on tariffs that they aren't going to like and they can understand this. Um but uh so when the first round of 10%
tariffs go into effect um what was China's response? China put tariffs on some manufactured goods, heavy trucks um
and then did some other things. They took actions with export controls. They took actions with sanctions and some
investigations. But that was sort of their answer was we're going to to do
this. Uh and then they said something else and they were telling anyone who would listen that our response is going
to be very straightforward. They had seen what had happened with Mexico and with Canada. And so they were
immediately saying, looking at perhaps the behavior of those two countries, they said, "Look, we we will never beg
you. We're not going to beg." In other words, we're not going to fly to Washington and say, "Please, oh, please, here's what we're going to do. You know,
make the bad tariffs go away." We're not going to do that. And anyone who knows anything about China, knows anything about Chinese history in the century of
humiliation, who's ever talked to a Chinese leader, knows that's just not how China rolls. And especially now
under President Xi in the new era, this is not how we roll. Number two, they say
we're not going to be bullied. And anyone who knows anything about China, you do not have to be a young China watcher to know China is not going to
allow itself to be perceived as being bullied on the world stage. And so their
answer is raising tariffs after this. Um but then you might remember um the day
the tariffs went into effect, they only went into effect on China. The White House press spokesperson did her press
conference and a press conference she said, you know, tariffs went into effect on China, but we'll talk to China. The two presidents are going to talk, you
know, in the next 24 to 36 hours. And a couple hours later on, Fox Business, a so proxy for the White House or proxy
for the president, basically came out say, "Hey, look. Yeah, I don't want to get ahead of the boss, but we're going to talk in the next they're going to talk in the next 24 to 36 hours." So, we
do what all of the young China watchers do, and that was we wait 24 to 36 hours and we go to People's Daily and Ren Rub
and we start looking on Truth Social and we look at every place to get the readout and there's no readout. So, we
do what everyone else does. We ring up our friends in China and the foreign ministry and we ring up people at, you know, at the White House and elsewhere.
We're like, "What happened in the call?" And what did we hear from the White House? What did we hear from the US
side? Anybody? What did they say? No, the Chinese didn't
call. And we're like, "Right. Why? They gave you their answer. Their answer was
15% tariffs and all this." And so there was a a really missed opportunity there
to because the Chinese everyone knew what the China was going to do. They weren't going to call, but there was that expectation. And so that's what
started us down this path. So now China's playing its role here. And so then what happens? Time starts to pass
and China's got its proposal outstanding that's with the White House on Fent. And again, maybe it's a great proposal,
maybe it's terrible. I don't know. And so they're like, we we need to talk about this with somebody. So they go and
they try and talk to people at the NYSE. They talk to various other principles around the White House and what do they
hear? You know, not my issue or they won't take the meeting or they won't raise. And so the Chinese are getting a
little frustrated because we've got 10% tariffs because of what?
Fentinil and now no one wants to talk with them about this. So a couple weeks pass and we get 10% more tariffs on
China for fentinil. And what happens there? Well, now the Chinese are a little bit frustrated because of the
things we all know about. So this time, China responds again in a non-escalatory way, but it hits harder than the first
time. Now it's 15% tariffs on agriculture and on things that are definitely in red states. And then they
do more things with their export controls and their sanctions and all that. And but then they do something
else which they send a signal to the US government and they hope the US government's listening but they're not
sure the US government is listening. So they make the signal as clear as it can be and this is when they sent what we
were calling the mean tweet. Uh but it was really a mean statement. Does anybody know what I'm talking about?
So China the embassy first and it was later repeated in Beijing puts out a statement and the statement basically says okay we know it's not about
fentinil and how do they know it's not about fentinil or why do they think it's not about fentinil because if it was about fentinil then someone would have
talked to them about fentinil so we know it's not about fentinil but we don't know what it's about so if you want a
tariff war all right let's have a tariff war or if you want to have a trade war let's have a trade war or any other kind
of war you know just tell us what you want. And this was China's way of signaling, hey guys, we're serious. We
either need to negotiate or we need to do something, but we're not just going to be bullied and not have a response.
So, a lot of things happened. I was in Beijing. We did a lot of things to sort of try and broker discussions and a lot
of things happened. But then the reciprocal tariffs happen and the US puts reciprocal tariffs on the world and
suspends them except for on China. And why do they not suspend them on China? Because what did China do? China
retaliated. And the White House seems or the the
China watchers in the administration seem like they were surprised by this and we're telling them China is going to
go. They've said we will not be back. We will not be bullied. We're going to go each and every time. We are going to
respond because our national dignity, it's the right thing to do and all these other things. And yet I feel like
everyone we talked to in the US government sort of like well they were escalating they were doing else but no they were trying to not do that. And so
again another opportunity or where not accurately reading China and its intentions and how it operates and
thinks about the world created sort of less to the situation where we are. And
so let me just sort of stop there and say that what you young China watchers
do and what George Washington is doing to train up a generation of China scholars and what USCT is doing to
promote these kind of exchanges promotes a kind of understanding that can help us avoid getting into these situations that
we're in. And now more than ever, where there is a highly competitive relationship with China, where there are
not good lines of communications between the two governments, that is needed more than anything else. But really, we need
the ability to interpret and to understand what China is doing. And they need the ability to interpret and
understand us. And trust me, they make as many mistakes as we do, but we need to understand each other better. But
that in a okay 18 minute sort of approach is how we got to where we are.
Let me stop there. We can do Q&A later and let me go to uh to Rosie. So, sorry about that. Thank you. No, no, perfect.
Thank you. I'd like to thank you. I will I will be
much more calm. Yeah, we're trying to bring down, you know, your your um anger here. Um well, uh no, huge huge thank
you, Sean. an incredibly um succinct summary of a enormous swap of history
and I think an incredible uh scene setter I think for some of the conversation that um we'll have here.
I'm going to ask just a few questions of my own, but I want to open it up to Q&A after that and I'm sure there's a lot of questions in the audience. So um we will
we will I know there's probably some good questions percolating, but but please start to get those in mind. Um I
think the first question I want to add uh ask you is I know you um gave us a really thorough readout from the US
policy side but you mentioned you were just in Beijing. So can you give us um a
bit of the texture of what you were hearing on the ground there um from government officials from academic kind
of eon trade people um US businesses Chinese businesses um was there kind of
a unanimous take or were there some discrepancies between those views? Yeah, I think the most interesting question is what is the Chinese government thinking
and what is it doing and what's its approach? Um, one thing that was really clear um is that China hates this idea
of having a tariff war, right? Um, there's a perception I think on the United States side that somehow China's
economy is so weak that the tariffs will bring China to its knees or will have a
greater effect on China than it does. But in point of fact, and as the Chinese are very quick to point out, we've been
predicting this day and preparing for this day since at least mid 2018. And so
we've taken steps to harden our economy and harden our system uh against this kind of coercive measure from the United
States. So what they're saying is that while they don't like it, while it
interrupts a lot of them sort of moving forward towards their economic goals, uh they're also saying that but you know
what, we're a whole lot better prepared to go through this than the United
States. So US bring it on. And the more the Chinese saw statements from the US
side uh sort of denigrating what they interpreted as denigrating the Chinese side, the more I would see sort of the
determination level getting ratcheted up. But I don't need to sort of repeat the statements here, but I remember with
one of them in particular, um I had had a meeting with a Chinese minister that I then ended up seeing a second time and
we'd been encouraging contact at the leader level and he in the meeting he sort of pulls up his phone. like and I
see him go into his WeChat and he goes into his WeChat and he starts showing me WeChat videos that are um sort of
translated into Chinese and all that of various US officials all put together about what they're saying about China
and he's like look at this how how could we possibly engage in dialogue as long
as this is the the type of rhetoric so so we there's just no way so we we have to try some other way so so the first
thing is the Chinese government saying hey we can outlast the United States we're not going to blink first and the Second is um for a while at least I
think I commend the White House for trying to dial down the rhetoric and trying to be more pragmatic in its approach but um but that was was kind of
a kind of a setback uh that I think they now need to get back. Um so I think that's the biggest but the second thing
is is is the United States is not alone in its difficulty in interpreting some
of the things from the other side. Um, one of the things that the Chinese I think often misinterpret is they project
or they think that there's a grand strategy often where there's not. And so
what happens is they will take strange points and link them together and say, "Oh, this is the US policy and this is
where it's all going." When in point of fact, they really are sort of discreet actions. They're not designed to to to
be linked. And so, but what happens is once they get into this idea that this is all a grand strategy according to
maybe the US 5-year plan or the, you know, guidance of the leading small group on political theory or whatever,
um, that they make it seem like that the United States is going to be less flexible and less sort of adept at
responding than it is. And so, it causes the Chinese to be more sort of stiff and formalistic in how they approach it. So,
the two sides have sort of mirror images of of of those those difficulties. Great. Um, well, thank you. And so, how
I mean, I think you gave a good insight of how the Trump administration is seeing this. They didn't do enough in
the first administration to to get their ends. What do you define as their ends? What are they trying to get out of this
relationship? And how would you respond to some of the national security hawks or the real trade hawks who think that
this is fine if the US and and China separate their trade, you know, separate their economies, this is in the US national interest and probably a good
um, you know, some short-term pain for long-term benefit. How do you how do you respond to that? Yeah. No, that's a definitely a view within the
administration. Um, you know, I I remember a a conversation I had with another um senior US official who um
when I was talking about the possibility of Chinese retaliation, the person he said, well, you know, we know the Chinese can't really retaliate to our
tariffs. My question is, how do we know that? And the answer was, well, you know, during the first Trump
administration, we did tariffs and China gave us their best shot. They went after agriculture. They hit us back with
tariffs. They put pressure on us. And what happened? We had no inflation. Our invest our economy continued to grow.
Things kept going. So, we know that China can't hit back. Um, and I said,
"Well, but you know, I think things might now be different than they were in 2018, uh, for a lot of reasons." And he
said, "Well, you know, if they hit back and they hit back effectively, well, that's not a bad thing." I say, "Okay."
And the answer was, "All that does then is we hit them back and it just hastens the decoupling of our two economies."
And so that particular official now um I haven't met with him recently but some of my members have and this official
will describe his outlook on China as essentially what he says is cold war 2.0 that we are in a cold war and we have
been since the last cold war ended. We were just slow to recognize that. And so if that is what you believe and that is
your your outlook on China, you know, whether it's right or wrong, there are certain policy imperatives that you have
to have and that is how do we protect ourselves from the China threat and then everything looks like a national
security issue and everything looks like okay, it's really important then that we isolate and protect ourselves from
China. So that's that is one accepted worldview right now in the current administration that's held by a number
of officials. Um, I think that's sort of one extreme end of the continuum, but the continuum is not the longest
continuum in the world of policy differences. Um, at the other end of the continuum, what I see is I'll see people
who are a little more soberminded and I'll say, well, you know, we do need decoupling or we need strategic decoupling. And there's a variety of
things that strategic decoupling might mean, but that's the scope of what it is. Um, but so for anyone in there, you
know, the goals that they're looking for are how do we make our own economy more resilient? How do we eliminate national
security threats, real or perceived, from China? And that's sort of the important thing. But that's all of the
administration except for one person, right? And who is that other one person?
Donald Trump. DJT. Uh Donald Trump doesn't see the world in the sort of
cold war or decoupling sort of way. He sees China. I think he's actually the most visionary person in the administration on the potential for the
USChina relationship. And you know, he said before the uh before the election, he said, 'Hey, you know, I want tariffs.
Why? I don't want China to build it over there. I want them to build it over here. And the thing that was the most interesting to me is go back and watch,
I think it was Wisconsin where he was trying this line and he's got the whole world, he's like, I don't want China to
build cheap goods over there, you know, boo. I want them to come and build it
here. Yay. Right. And so I think if there's anybody that can move the public
needle on China, it's Donald Trump, right? And it's the same thing with Tik Tok, right? You have the US Congress
saying Tik Tok is such a national security threat. We need to ban it. We need to ban it today or it needs to
completely change. And you know in that group it was the US the House Select
Committee on China that put this forward and it passes Congress. And what happens? Trump comes out and he says,
"You know what? Yeah, the letter of the law may say it all has to be resolved before I'm in, but you know, let's let's
renegotiate. Maybe we can come up with a deal. And what's the response from Congress? What's the response of all the
National Security except for one? Well, why don't we give the president a chance? Even the head of the select
committee comes out and says, you know what? Let's give the president a chance to do a deal. So, what that means to me
is is Donald Trump does not see the world in terms of national security competition with China. He doesn't see
the world in terms of tech competition with China. He does see potential for the two countries to work together on
certain things. Um but he may be the only person in this administration who does that. And so um so I think the way
he would define success in the relationship with China is different than some of his national security hawks
would see success with China or different than maybe many people in this room. Maybe different than the business community might. But I think that's sort
of the scope of different views that people would have on what do we want with China. Those are where we hope to
have the policy lead. Yeah. Well, great. I mean, I think that uh preempts my next question, but where So, we're looking at
the, you know, econ and trade lens, and that's really been the bulk of Trump's kind of actions towards China so far.
What do you think this um will, you know, pretend for the next, you know, we
got a while to go, we got three years ahead of us. What do you think we can expect next from this administration on China? And not just on trade. Um there's
a lot of, you know, other issues on the table that we haven't really kind of got to yet in Trump's foreign policy agenda,
Taiwan, um you know, military and geopolitical concerns, um cooperation
on, you know, public health, other types of kind of shared global issues. Um what what is your take so far? Yeah, so let
me start with trade. Um you know, Trump is famous for saying trade wars are easy to win. Um, and I think if we look at
what we've seen coming out of the administration since last Thursday, since last Thursday, we've really seen
the White House become much more pragmatic on on how we might approach negotiations with China, how we might
enter into negotiations with China. Um, and but again, we hear that, you know, there'll be a deal in three or four
weeks. You know, the current mutually imposed embargo, this is Besset, you know, is unsustainable. And he's
absolutely right. It is unsustainable. Um, but what I worry about is again I feel like the two sides may not
accurately be taking the measure of the other. And so when the administration says we need to resolve this tariff
impass, I think they're looking at this through a very specific lens and that very specific lens is the IPA tariffs,
right? So this is the reciprocal tariffs and maybe the fentel tariffs. They're not looking at anything beyond that, but
they see the tariffs as the issue to be resolved. Um, and maybe that can be resolved easily mutually, maybe not. But
talking to Chinese officials, that's not how they see the issue. They see the AIPA tariffs as part of a broader US
strategy to contain China's growth or to hold China back. So if the
administration goes to China and says, "Hey, let's just walk the tariffs back."
Um, China's like, "Yeah, no, that's not I fear that China's going to say, well, that's not really the whole thing
because in addition to the tariffs, we have more export controls. We have other types of sanctions. And besides, we
don't want to come back and negotiate this again in two weeks or two months or 6 months or a year. We need something
that's sort of durable. What about all of the other tariffs that are sort of loaded up and ready to go? We've got all
the 232s, including a new one announced today on trucks. Uh we've got we've got
the potential for tariffs related to purchases of Venezuelan energy. We've got recent sanctions. And so, China
wants to talk about resolve all of those issues. and they see that as all part and parcel of the tariffs, but the White
House doesn't. And so my fear is that the perception of the White House that
China really wants to do a deal and wants to do a deal now, combined with underestimating just how broad the
issues are from China's perspective means I don't think we get there in three to four weeks. And and and I don't
think that the economy can handle three or four more weeks at tariffs in triple digits. So I I don't know where we go
from here, but I do think that it's something that needs to be resolved. Uh in terms of broader issues, um I think
that uh the Trump administration is uh is doing some things right. And one of
the things that um I've been sort of impressed with and frankly surprised by is the eagerness of certain countries to
actually do deals with the United States. Um you know, for example, most of the
Az bring it on and here's what we're going to do. and making offers that would have taken, you know, years to
negotiate, right? So, they're doing some things right. Um, but they're also doing some things that are hard. And as part
of those negotiations, countries are trying to keep this largely in the economic space, but the Trump
administration uh sees an opportunity to expand it into the geopolitical space and other things. And so, in some of
these negotiations like, okay, well, we want to talk about maybe bases or we want to talk about, you know, purchase
of military hardware. I want to talk about what is your role going forward going to be uh towards participation in
the belt and road or what's your role with going forward going to be in terms of your willingness to accept Chinese investment or Chinese exports and so um
so I think what's going to make this harder is the more the Trump administration includes uh not
necessarily they're wrong but includes national security issues in economic negotiations the harder it's going to be
to make those deals happen and I think they're not going to be in a position to really do a deal with China until they
have like other deals in place first. And so there's a lot of optimism right now in the White House that within 30
days there's going to be, you know, a dozen deals. And uh and I hope that's right, but but I'm not sure that it is.
Uh but again, that's all going to complicate its negotiations with China is China's going to see those deals as
being anti-China and containing China, and that again will complicate negotiations. So all that is to say, I
think there's a hard path that leads to a deescalation between the United States and China. And what that means is
because it's a hard path, there is going to be serious damage done to both economies. Uh that's totally unnecessary
because neither country is going to be able to figure out how to get us into this deescalatory cycle. So um I'm now
hoping that some of the young China watchers are going to tell me why I'm wrong because oh please, I want to be
wrong. But this is the this is what I fear is coming. Well, last question for me and then we can open it up. But that
very, you know, on that point of young China watchers, I know there's some folks in this room who have studied Chinese, anticipated entering um you
know, jobs in the business sector or places like the business council and who are facing um a lot of uncertainty
around what the future of US China economic ties look like in their career ahead. Um do you have any advice for them? Oh, absolutely. Let me think about
this a little bit. Um so, a couple of data points. So just in the last month at USCBC uh we've interviewed
for a number of positions. I think we were filling four or five and um have been really impressed with the quality
of people that that we're getting. Um in China, one of the things we were doing when I was at at Cington in Berling is
it was not unusual for companies to come to us and say quietly, hey, we need a new whatever general counsel. We need a
new whatever it is and for but we don't want to we don't want to advertise it widely. help us find the right person.
Um, that happened just when I was at Amcham and again and all those. But I think maybe the most useful thing would be one of the things we did when I was
at Amcham is we brought all of the executive search and headunting firms together to say what does the world look
like for China people for you know Americans who want to do something in China and we brought in some folks from
universities to say what's happening with your students and what we got I thought was actually really good news
and it'll probably surprise exactly no one that all of the tension that's going on right now is like totally full
employment for competent China watchers, China analysts, China risk people. That
that that's a great thing. So there's a lot of opportunities right now. But what we got from the executive search firms
that totally tracks with my experience at AmChamp and Cington and now at USCBC is that it's not enough to know your
China history. In fact, maybe your China history and your China culture is important, but it's like not all that.
The people who really are in demand are people that have language skills, but
that's definitely not enough. There's lots of folks with language skills, but it's people who have some other skill.
It might be microbiology, it might be engineering, it might be advanced mathematics. That the combination of
China knowledge, China language, and a technical skill seems to be sort of the magic combination that's really helping
a lot of folks get in and get sort of China jobs. So, absolutely work on your language skills. If you don't have that,
then you're nowhere in today's market. You're not nowhere, but it's much harder. It's much harder to slog in today's market. Um, but then the more
other skills that you can get, um, the better it is. And it's not necessarily,
well, you know, IR is a good skill or AON is a skill or whatever, but if you have other things that set you apart,
uh, that really makes a big difference, particularly in STEM, even for other jobs. Great. Well, um I think young
China watchers in the audience have their work cut out for them then to um scale up but also the opportunity to
contribute massively to the next phase of um US China economic ties. Um with that I would love to open up to the
audience um for Q&A. Um raise your hand and I can call on you. We have a microphone coming through. So wait for
that to reach you. Maybe start in the front then to the back to the side here. Yeah.
Cool. Hi. Thank you for your insights. be
okay. What's that? Yeah, I think maybe speak up then we'll see. Okay. Well, if everyone can hear me. You're louder now
than you the microphone. Um yeah, so uh thank you very much for your
insights. These perspectives on tariffs are really important. But I actually want to pivot to a different um economic
question regarding uh China's um China and the US and um their their uh
interchange. Um so during the trade war um during Trump's first term um there
was a lot of uh scrutiny on foreign investment in China and um you know
there's a lot of pressure putting uh that was put on these businesses and um
a lot of these companies were starting to divest or thinking about divesting. Um that was kind of a theme of the trade
war as as I recall. um do you feel that uh you know the second term there's
going to be renewed scrutiny on um American businesses and European businesses in China and um I guess to
extend that question um do you feel like they're going to be uh implementing a screening system for outbound
investment? Okay. Um and sorry would you mind introducing yourself as well while I Okay. Hi, I'm Peter Ducker. I lived in
China for 10 years. I work at James as a senior China analyst. Um no great question. Um so I would
answer that two ways. First um one thing that we saw during the first trade war I
was in China throughout the whole trade war and then through co um when we looked and we did our
surveys live stream sorry we got our
musical I thought that was your way of saying we don't want to hear your answer
the companies moving out of China was dramatically overstated Um, in terms of when we would survey members, it was
still a fraction of a percent that was actually moving out except for those whose business just disappeared, right?
Um, was there investment that was diverted? Absolutely. Were there projects that may have gone somewhere
else? Absolutely. But companies didn't really move out on mass. Um, even earlier in then through the Biden
administration, the same sort of thing. Um, we had a wave after the reopenings from COVID and that happened because not
because of geopolitical pressure in the United States, but there were companies that thought if we can tough it out through COVID, we're going to get what
we had in the United States. We're going to get this sideways L style recovery, you know, where things are going to go
up and they're going to be better and so we'll get a quick recovery. And then what they saw was instead they saw this sort of, you know, up and then, you
know, cliff that fell off. And then companies realized, all right, maybe we're not gonna going to stick around. And so we had a wave of closures and
companies moving in that postcoid period because it didn't get better the way they thought. Um now though I think it's
absolutely different. Now we will see quite potentially a wave of closures for you know um both in the United States
and then also companies that eat China. And the reason is pretty simple. Right now where tariffs are above 100% there's
just no trade to be done. Right? It is few and far between where there's a product that anyone's going to pay that
much sort of in tariffs. And so there's a lot of US companies that are going to have to leave because even though
they've been very profitable in China now because they're unable to get inputs into China in a cost-effective manner,
they're going to be priced out of the marketplace and so they'll be leaving. So we've talked to a number of our members who have basically said, "Yeah,
we've got, you know, weeks to months to get the tariffs fixed or there will be
nothing we do that's profitable here and we'll have to we'll have to move on." So there will be um not necessarily due to
geopolitical pressure, but due to just the realities of tariffs mean uh you're no longer competitive. Um that's going
to bite on the US side just as much. I had a conversation on Friday with a medium-sized US company that made people
think was a large US company, but it's a medium-sized private US company does business in the Midwest and in the
South. And what he was telling me is he said, "Look, we export globally and
China is maybe 30% of our of our outside of US business." And so what does that
translate into? About 7,000 containers a year of product that goes to China. But
they also have to import a thousand containers of raw materials from China per year. And so we said what we
realized was, yeah, our business in China was going to fall to zero because we weren't going to be able to export.
But what we totally underestimated was that we were going to have a lot of our world exports fall to zero as well
because now we're paying for our thousand containers coming in. Now tariffs are so high, we're no longer
competitive in Europe or other places in East Asia or even in Latin America and
uh so they've lost sort of their global markets and so the question is will they now be able to stay open in the US in
this sort of tariff thing. So that's one thing but second um there isn't yet an outbound investment screening mechanism
but there is the outbound investment sort of reporting mechanisms which are going into effect through through treasury and so do we expect that that
will probably become a a more stringent or a more more of a regulatory regime is
more of a reporting regime I think that's quite likely um whether it happens this year or next year that's something I think that's coming I think
that most people expect thank you um the gentleman in the back and then over here in the
Thank you. I'm not sure that mic is uh is picking up to the front, so maybe if you could
just speak. Thank you. I I have a pretty loud voice. Uh I'm Tom Redford with the
Foreign Policy Discussion Group. Um I'm I'm afraid I'm an old China watcher. Uh
I'm Thank you for letting me ask your question. Uh I'd like uh a little discussion of a
couple of very important geopolitical issues uh that to expand the discussion
about any deals with China. Uh the first one obviously is Taiwan
uh and there is a constant threat of invasion rather more likely an embargo
uh of Taiwan. Uh what a lot of us fear is that in making deals with Xihinping
uh Trump may be tempted to give up Taiwan. Uh so that's that's one question that's
related to the deal making. Another involves the South China Sea where China
has been very aggressive over the last 10 years. I remember Xihinping uh
promising Obama, we're not going to militarize these islands. In the Rose Garden, I was there. Yeah. So, yes. So,
uh there has been a terrific change. It produces a lot of tension
uh with some of our allies with the Philippines above all with with Malaysia
uh with Brunai with Vietnam. and Vietnam
is a formidable uh problem uh for China. So, how would
you relate the South China Sea issues to some of these international trade
problems? And don't forget the problem with Taiwan. Let me start with Taiwan because I think Taiwan is easy to sort
of dispense with that particular one. Um so I remember I've been in Taiwan and China and Taiwan. Uh lived in Taipei.
I've got many friends there and love Taiwan. um and also lived in China. And so I think that the China watching
community in the US has kind of botched a lot of it on Taiwan. And where I think they've botched it is I think they are
misreading China's intentions. China absolutely is committed 1,000% to recovering Taiwan. There's no question.
It's non-negotiable. In their view, it is going to happen. Uh where I think we get some misreading is I think if we go
back you know a year and a half to the election of William Blank. I remember reading about this in the United States
and seeing it just being completely different than the view from
Beijing and talking to government officials and Taiwan watchers who were in the Chinese government think tanks.
Um, here on the US, what I saw in the press coverage was, you know, Taiwan, China's archeneemy, the DPP wins the
election, things are going to be bad or things are going to get worse. And in Beijing, I'm talking to the think tanks
and they're like doing cartwheels like this is the best thing that could have ever happened. And why? Well, because
you know, Taiingwen had an absolute majority plus she had the parliament, right? The legislative UN was controlled
by her. So we had one party rule by DPP. Now we have William Li who wins with a
plurality of the vote, not even a majority and they lost the legislative UN. So China's like, "Yep, this is this
is great." And then the next election is going to be better. So that was the first thing because then they realized
that William Li's ability to really do anything too extreme and too irrevocable
is constrained compared to Taiwan. But the second the more important argument and I would say that in China's eyes the
current geopolitical system is probably reinforcing this view and when I talk to
Chinese officials when I talk to party officials I talk to old party
cadres this idea is absolutely hardwired and baked into the psyche into the
identity and it is the east led by China is rising and the west is inevitable
decline and as they sit in Jonah on high and they watch what's happening in the United States, they say, "Aha, look, all
of the things that we've predicted will happen are happening. The NATO alliance is potentially weakened." The Pacific
alliances are potentially weakened. We think Chinese think America is committing economic suicide. They're
giving us everything that we wanted and they're doing it for free and they're doing it to themselves. And so the view
right now I think in Joe not high and like probably you and like other people we talked to a lot of Chinese officials
and retired Chinese officials is very much no no the real strategy now is to do two things. Keep up the balance of
terror with Taiwan so no one gets any ideas or has any illusions that they're going anywhere. Got to keep that sort of
tapped down. But at the end of the day, we don't really need to do anything because eventually the people in Taiwan
are going to realize, hey, we were betting on the wrong horse. Do we want to have stable, prosperous, happy China,
or do we want to have, you know, sort of the West and where it's leading? And so, while I may disagree with their
conclusions, their belief is time is on their side and eventually the people of Taiwan will see the air of their ways
and will come home. So I'm I think that I'm much less concerned about the risk of a conflict over Taiwan than I was
prior to the election of William Bl. Um and so and certainly the way Chinese
leadership and party members talk about it is different than it was before William. Um the South China Sea I think
is a really fascinating case that's different. And so um we'll be the first
person to point out China has been a horrible actor in the South China Sea. Uh I think this was a mistake of the
Obama administration. They didn't stand fast um on uh second uh scar bro and
then you know they believed somehow though despite all evidence to the contrary that at the end of the day if
the arbitral panel ruled in the Philippines favor they believed again against all odds that China would
somehow find a way to navigate in this space and obviously China didn't. Um but
now what's happened is I think there is a real concern about the value of the so-called US security
umbrella for East Asia. And so what we just saw was we just saw Xi Jinping go to Vietnam. He was his second state
visit to Vietnam was treated very well and um Vietnam is now trying to not
choose between the US and China. And they're going to do everything they can to not choose between the US and China. But now they will be much more open to
China than they might have been in the past. Um, ditto for we just saw with Anoir in Malaysia very very open to
working with China. Of course they also have South China Sea conflicts. Um, the odd man out of course is the Philippines
and you know China feels the need to demonstrate here's what happens if you stand up to us but then to Vietnam and
to Malaysia and to others here's what happens when you are kind to us. So it's a good old classic devid at imperialist
strategy that has been perfected by you know everyone from the Romans onward to you know divide and rule and I think
they're playing that very deafly. So I don't think it means anything good for US security issues. I don't think it's
anything good for South China Sea security issues, but I think the reality is is that countries are going to
realign based on where they see their security and their economic benefit. And it's going to be different a year from
now than it was a year ago. Well, I think we have um time for maybe
two more questions. Maybe we can group them right at the end. So, we've got in the front here. Maybe I've got three. So, and then Sam in the back and then
the gentleman right there. Speed round. speed round. Yeah. Yeah, you can go ahead. I don't think Okay. I'm Jeffrey
Cole and uh I'm an economic PhD candidate at Gab. Um I feel really relieved that uh heard that you say
that official right now is a little bit sen was expected that way like took the
office but like today's there's a news headline in a mainstream Chinese media
out that uh the US stand up in the UN General Assembly uh to criticize the
Chinese government position to manipulate that's their their word the resolution ution
2758 which is relating to like the who's the legal representative what happened
in 1972. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. Um so I'm wondering like what's your what's your take on this and then will
you see that this will somewhat jeopardize the uh US China relationship
in the future and the other things I would really curious about is like sorry in the interest of time just maybe one
question we can also go to the gentleman in the back for two for two more quick questions. Yeah, my name is uh Tony Wu.
I'm training with the Council on Foreign Relations and uh I just had a question and we discussed terrorists a lot, but I
want to circle back to that point. Um I know you mentioned that we moved from strategy of uh you know sticks and then
into carrots and into like, you know, somewhere in between or no strategy at all and then back into sticks. And um I
just know that some of the tariffs are addressing real issues. you know, some of the the the economic issues. You
know, China hasn't always been playing fair in the world immigrating system. And so I wanted to know um you think
that tariffs are still a viable tool and um if they are then how can we use them
u properly to address some of these issues and you know some suggestions to reform the system that we have. Then
Sam, hi thanks. uh very quick three decades
in the state department uh we've seen a lot of proposals about the reform of the state department and contracting of the
the presence of offices and consulates and regions how do you see that proposal
uh shaping the USChina relationship moving forward and so some easy ones for you to work
round out so we'll start with yours I don't think it matters right we've had sparring between the US and China for
decades and the UN particular the last few years at the end of the day if they weren't arguing over that they'd be arguing over something else. Uh so I I
don't think this is a real issue. I think it's a chance for diplomats to yell at each other but I don't think it matters uh in in certainly the grand
scheme of things. Um second question in terms of tariffs being real issues. Absolutely there are real issues. China
has not been this benevolent trade actor on the world stage. China loves to posture itself as we are the greatest
defenders of the global trading system and the world trading order and the WTO. No, they're not. They never have been.
No country has had so many WTO suits against them as China. No country has had well now maybe the US is getting
into that territory has been in the in the yes we understand we've gotten lost at the at the WTO and we're still not
going to implement or the things that went into their accession agreement like we'll eventually sign up to the GO. No,
I'm the GPA. No, they're not doing that. No. So they've never been this great trading sort of you know free trading
country. Uh so absolutely China is not puristdriven snow. Um but in terms of
the role of tariffs, the way tariffs are utilized right now is worse than useless. And I say that because it is
getting the exact opposite of the effect that is intending to get. It is not causing investment to happen in the United States and it's not boosting
investment from the United States. It's reducing investment in the United States and it's diverting exports that would
have gone from the United States to going from other countries and it's causing supply chains to move out of the
United States and once they move out they don't come back. So the current system of tariffs is not useless. It is
negative. But is there a role for tariffs? Absolutely. And there are people I think in the White House and the administration who recognize that
tariffs when they're used in a way to go for strategic industries to provide strategic onshoring uh that are good
uses. But to tariff everything from socks and underwear at the same rate as semiconductors uh and and
pharmaceuticals isn't prioritizing the real issues that need to be prioritized. So I think there's a role but it needs
to be fundamentally changed. Um the last thing in terms of state department reorganization because of time let me answer it with one sort of simple simple
way and that is what it's going to do is it's going to make young China watchers even more important because among the
many things that are being cut is the training budget and training millets and
uh historically a majority of the people who become China hands in the state department not typically the best China
hands but the China hands are the people who are taught and learn Chinese through a series of assignments by the state
department and by cutting training which we see is going to be cutting training in Chinese for new diplomats and foreign
service officers bodess not well for US China bodess not well for us ability to
interpret and understand China and especially doesn't bode well for our ability to negotiate and get good sort
of agreements with the Chinese so I think that may be the single biggest factor that I worry about is the
pipeline for China hands uh is going to be truncated and that's that's just not helpful
Well, um I think um unfortunately a depressing note to end on, but I think a call to action for those in the room who
who I think are committed to this task, whether as young panel watchers or those who who are trying to support Yeah, I
should have saved the introduction of Julia for the end. Right. So to end on a happy note, let's all give another round
of applause
to watchers. The real real applause go to you Sean. Anyone who recognizes that
the world's two largest economies have no choice but to figure out how to have
a workable relationship. There just is no alternative. And while there are real challenges, deep hard challenges, um
there just is no alternative. So for anyone who's working towards that end, you know, applause to them, too. Um
well, thank you. And you know, we're certainly doing it here, you said, and I know many folks in this room are worried about this as well. um on behalf of
young China watchers and you said huge huge thanks for your insights today. So please
um thank you. Um yeah so let me just say a few words about our what happens now. Um so we've got um it's 6:35 I think at
6:40 on the dot we'll start the show. So um you'll we'll have our discussion up
live with um uh we've got Ryan Hos, Matt Turpin, and Ling Wei. So, that will be
part of the National Committee's general broadcast. Um, it's available on YouTube. We hope folks will stay to
watch it. We understand some people might have to leave. So, in the next 5 minutes, feel free to grab drinks. Um,
stretch your legs. Uh, the restroom's around the corner if you need. And then at 6:40, we'll dim the lights and start
the presentation here. And we um, thank you so much for coming and hope you stay to the end. But if not, please join us
for other events. If I may, one person sort of I think fits under all those categories that uh Sean said, Rosie
Lavine. One final time. Oh
my. Okay. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Okay.
