Policy Exchange invites you to The Colin Cramphorn Memorial Lecture (II)

The Future of the Indo Pacific

by

Dr Kurt Campbell

Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of The Asia Group, LLC

Dr Kurt M. Campbell is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of The Asia Group, LLC, a strategic advisory and capital management group specializing in the Asia Pacific region.

From 2009 to 2013, he served as the Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, where he is widely credited as being a key architect of the “pivot to Asia.” For advancing a comprehensive U.S. strategy that took him to every corner of the Asia-Pacific region, Secretary Hillary Clinton awarded him the Secretary of State’s Distinguished Service Award (2013) — the nation’s highest diplomatic honor. Campbell was recognized in the Queen’s New Year’s list of honors in 2014 as an Honorary Officer of the Order of Australia and as an Honorary Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for his work in support of American relations with Australia and New Zealand respectively. He also received top national honors from Korea and Taiwan.

Campbell concurrently serves as Chairman of the Board of the Center for a New American Security, as a non-resident Fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center, and as Vice Chairman of the East-West Center in Hawaii. He was also appointed as the Henry A. Kissinger Fellow at the McCain Institute for 2018.

He is the author or editor of ten books including the recently published The Pivot: The Future of American Statecraft in Asia. He’s also the co-author of Difficult Transitions: Why Presidents Fail in Foreign Policy at the Outset of Power, and Hard Power: The New Politics of National Security. Dr. Campbell was a contributing writer to The New York Times and has written a regular column for the Financial Times. Dr. Campbell is a member of the Aspen Strategy Group, the Council on Foreign Relations, the International Institute for Strategic Studies, and the Trilateral Commission.

INTRODUCTION

DEAN GODSON: My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen, good evening, welcome here to Policy Exchange.  My name is Dean Godson, I’m Director of Policy Exchange and it’s my privilege to be your host for the 9^th Colin Cramphorn Memorial Lecture.  Colin Cramphorn, as many of you will remember him, for those of you who don’t, Colin was the much-loved Chief Constable of West Yorkshire, an outstanding professional policeman in charge of the investigation into t he 7/7 killings, was the first Acting Chief Constable of the new Police Service for Northern Ireland, before that the last Deputy Chief Constable of the old Royal Ulster Constabulary.  He is still very much missed today, still so very often in our thoughts, we are privileged to be able to welcome his widow, Lynn Cramphorn, here today and virtually I welcome them here on behalf of all of you and also her sons, the late Colin Cramphorn’s sons, Edward and Ian.  Please, we’re very welcome you’re here and we’re always honoured to be able to honour the memory of your late husband and father and, in a unique way this year, this is the 9^th Cramphorn Lecture and for the first time we’ve split it in two parts.

Last week many of you will have heard Matt Pottinger, Deputy National Security Advisor to the President, delivering his thoughts, initially in Mandarin, a first also for Policy Exchange, in Friday’s last discussion.   Today, in the second part, we are having another leading US authority on the region, Dr Kurt Campbell, previously Assistant Secretary of State for Asia in the Obama administration and now Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Asia Group, one of the leading consultancies in the space and, of course, one of the leading thinkers behind the ‘Pivot to Asia’.  We are privileged to be able to welcome you here, Kurt, today from Washington D.C. and you’ll be delivering your address for half an hour, followed by questions – the usual house rules, no question too outrageous, you simply have to state your name and organisation first.  So, welcome here, Kurt, we look forward to hearing what you have to say.  Thank you.

SPEECH TRANSCRIPTION

Dean, thank you very much, it’s really an honour to be with all of you tonight at the Policy Exchange. All I can say is I wish I was there in person; my best years I was a graduate student at Oxford and lived for many years, worked for the IISS in London and so it is just a privilege for me to back and I am grateful for the invitation and it is a particular honour to give the Colin Cramphorn Memorial Lecture and to follow my friend and colleague, Matt Pottinger, who I read his speech carefully yesterday and I’m afraid I will not be able to give mine in Mandarin but I will give it in English and hopefully it will lead to a spirited discussion and some questions as we go forward.

What I thought was most interesting about the purpose of the Policy Exchange and its ambitions, was the idea, the concept that many think now is a little bit quaint, the idea that politics is at the water’s edge of praise that is used by those who believe there still can be some degree of bipartisanship in the formulation and execution of foreign policy.  The term derives from a Senator in the 1940s, Senator Vandenburg, who was a key isolationist, a person who blocked American engagement in the world, a prominent Republican isolationist but then at the dawn of the Cold War became allied with the Democratic administration, supported NATO, the United Nations and became essentially an icon for bipartisan engagement going forward.  Sometimes we look back on that period with rose-coloured glasses and believed this period of definition where the United States basically crafted a role on the global stage in the 1940s with new institutions and capabilities was somehow set in stone but in fact, if you look at that period, it was in many ways as contentious and difficult as the period in the United States today.

Now, I don’t need to tell you that we are on the verge of – and we say this all the time in the United States and in fact, in every country where there is an historic election, but I think the case can be made in the United States that the stakes could not be higher.  I think in all likelihood we will have some domestic violence next week, I think we will have contention both legally and politically and, even though it might be settled in the short-term, bipartisanship of the kind that we have experienced in the past and we’ve worked towards and for, will be hard-fought and will be difficult to achieve going forward.

One of the things that Dean underscored to me in his communication was the hope that China and Asia policy would in fact be one of those areas where potentially Democrats and Republicans can work together going forward and I just want to say in addition to the obvious things, which is that both of our parties, both the Democratic and Republican party, are going through profound changes and I would not be at all surprised to see major policy changes and movements across party boundaries.  In many respects, some of our policies reflect more tribalism than commitment to ideas or ideology and I think we are at the beginning stages of rethinking many aspects, not only of domestic policy but America’s role in the world and so this election in many respects stands not only as a kind of a guidepost about what will happen next domestically but internationally and I want to give you a sense of the kind of changes that are underfoot, underway now, and what that might mean for the future particularly as we think about China.

The way to think about it are three numbers, this will just be a shorthand for you all.  Those numbers would be 75, 20 and 40 and let me just unpack that for you quickly.  Each of them reflect very deep systemic changes that are buffeting the United States more generally.  I think if you look at Asia more directly, over the last 75 years or so, since the end of the Second World War, the United States working with allies and friends have essentially constructed a kind of operating system and that operating system is complex, optimistic, open trade engagement for deployed military capabilities, strong treaty allies, agreement to certain principles, freedom of navigation, peaceful resolution of disputes, protection of IPO, you can go through what are the fabric of this interconnected web but this operating system, again over the last 75 years, has led to the greatest period of prosperity in Asia in human history.  It has been remarkable, we have seen enormous achievements in China, they have essentially lifted a billion people out of poverty and it has been good for the United States and other countries more generally.

So, it’s perhaps not surprising that this period, some people might describe it as a Pax Americana, is being challenged and it’s being challenged from two sources – one, I think expected and the other I think a little bit unexpected.  The first is China, arriving states in the international system always challenge certain aspects of the existing system, I don’t think China is unique in that respect so I think they like certain parts of what they’ve seen but they’d like to change other aspects that would benefit China going forward.  So, that sort of contestation, contesting, is I think to be expected and will continue going forward.  I think the other source of challenge has been someone unexpected.  I think President Trump believes fundamentally – if you look to the extent that he has policy proclivities over a longer period of time, I think he has viewed Asia not as a sail that has propelled the United States forward, but as a place that has taken advantage of the United States.  I think he is deeply sceptical about all of our trade agreements, I don’t think he really makes distinctions between trade partners, friends, enemies and the like and I think I believes that many of these countries have taken advantage of the United States and so over the last four years, the Pax Americana, the system that we’ve created, has been challenged from two sources, from Beijing and from Washington, and the question is going forward, are there elements of this system, for instance if Vice-President Biden is elected, that can be resurrected, can continue going forward or has that been scuttled in ways that will be difficult going forward?  My belief is that there are still elements that there’s broad buy-in across the region and it will be possible resurrect but it will be challenging going forward.

The second number is 20 and this is something that is unusual.  Rarely does a country go on such a substantial detour as the United States has gone on.  We have over-invested in terms of money, resources, capability, blood sweat and tears in the Middle East and South Asia, in Iraq, in Syria, in Afghanistan over the last 20 years, we have built enormous capabilities and we have frankly over-invested there in ways that we have not been able to take advantage of what I think is clear, that the lion’s share of the history of the 21^st century is going to be written in Asia and so there is think a broad bipartisan recognition that we’ve got to begin this process of shifting.  Now I’ve used the word ‘pivot’, I think that’s a little out of vogue now but overall, the repositioning of the United States more towards Asia, that process is beginning and I do believe, as Dean would say, that this is essentially bipartisan.

The third number, 40, represents essentially the period of engagement so essentially engagement with China began about 40 years ago and I think there is broad recognition that the contours, the elements of that strategy, many of them have perhaps worked well in the past but they are not going to serve going forward and we are in the period of trying to construct a new strategy towards China going forward and that the past example of engagement with sexy big chairs and the secretive whispered diplomacy between the United States and China, that many of those issues and manners of engagement are frankly not going to be replicated going forward and there is going to need to be a new paradigm for understanding the challenge that China presents to the world and both the opportunities and challenges more generally.

Now I will say, as a State Department official, I escorted then Vice President Xi around the United States when he was a guest of Vice President Biden. I  got a chance to see him up close and personal for a long period of time and have had subsequent engagement with him.  He is unsentimental, unromantic, even when he visited Iowa where he was a student, it was clear to me he saw the United States as a country that China could compete with, perhaps compete effectively and I think probably deep down thought that China’s time was coming and that China should and would assume the leading position on the global stage and so I think in many respects, the analysis that the Trump administration has provided, which is that China as a strategic competitor, I believe that will continue.  The challenge oftentimes in American policies is that successive governments tend to think that the practices of previous governments should all be thrown out, should be put in the ash heap of history and completely reinvent everything.  I will say that has been a hallmark of this administration, if Obama did it, Trump would want to do the reverse even if it was in American strategic interests.  I regret that and I am hopeful that we will not repeat that if Vice President Biden is elected.

I think there are some things – quite different from Europe by the way, I think most of you would prefer a change in government but there are many in Asia that have some attraction to elements of the Trump approach to Asia and let me just go through a few of those that I’d like to see that we would continue.  The first of course is a cold-headed assessment of China’s ambitions and recognising that great power politics is going to be with us going forward.  The second is I frankly admire the way President Trump conducted some of his diplomacy with foreign interlocutors, particularly in Asia.  Look at the long languid dinners and interactions, golf, that President Trump had for instance with Prime Minister Abe, I’d like to see that continue.  I’d like to see an American President, Vice President Biden, giving Asian leaders face, engaging deeply, working closely with them and not these short, quick, in and out meetings that sometimes animate global diplomacy; a more leisurely recognition that face matters so much among our Asian friends and interlocutors.

I do think that again at the strategic level, some of this is important.  I think the application of a strategy has been a bit of a mess and so the hope will be that a new administration will click in place a series of activities and initiatives that will send a message about American purpose going forward.  Let me just tell you what I think those ingredients are and some of those things are taken from what Vice President Biden and his key advisors have said and what I think makes sense as we go forward.  The first is frankly the need for strategic statements and documents that lay out a clear strategy for the way forward, even with a recognition that it is going to take a substantial period of time, probably years, maybe even a decade to essentially finalise and put the touches on a strategy for ensuring American continuing engagement in the Asia-Pacific region.

So, the first element that I think you’re going to hear a lot of going forward is that idea of American domestic investment and this is not a trick but it is an approach that Democrats have often made when it comes to foreign policy.  The key issue will be the idea that the real areas of competition with China are not military.  Military is important but ultimately it will be in leading technology areas – AI, 5G, robotics, quantum computing – and those areas require substantial investments in R&D, public/private partnerships, education, areas where the United States has frankly fallen down and not made the kinds of investments frankly since the Cold War and so you are going to see a major set of initiatives that are going to have a twin goal, one to recover from the pandemic and also prepare for systemic cooperation, excuse me, competition with China going forward.

The second is a longer-term effort but one that I think cannot be underestimated and I would call this capacity building.  So, at the same time that we have focused so much on Iraq and Afghanistan, we have focused our capabilities inside the US government and in our military and our intelligence, on building a cadre of people who understand local traditions and history in the Middle East.  I would posit that we have not made the same kinds of investments in our government, and let me also say, in our businesses, to really understand the nature of the challenges and opportunities of Asia.  So, this capacity building is going to take a substantial period.  I see it up and coming in people in academia and think tanks and business but many of our senior leaders and diplomats really cut their teeth in other regions, on other issues and they do not have as much experience in what I think are going to be the dominant issues going forward in the Asia Pacific region and that capacity building, of the kind that we did during the Cold War on Russia and arms control is a generation-long effort but we have to begin now.  We have begun over the last couple of years but there is much more to do and I will simply say that I work with a lot of businesses now and many of them have not invested nearly enough in what will be dominant markets in the Asia Pacific region going forward.

The third element that you’re going to hear a lot about going forward is allies and friends and it’s an easy throwaway line, it’s not meant to be throwaway but the idea that we are going to listen more and work more closely with allies and friends.  I think in many respects this is meant as a contrast with the Trump administration and I think, just as I tried to compliment the Trump administration on successfully and effectively diagnosing some of the challenges that China presented, I think they have tried to go it alone way too much and they have not worked as effectively with a broader coalition of countries.  They have done some in the Quad and some bilaterally but I think overall much more needs to be done in terms of allied and friendly engagement but it’s going to turn out – and as someone who has worked in the Pentagon and the State Department and elsewhere, I’ve worked a lot on allied engagement.  It is challenging and it’s much harder than we realise and there are a number of things that will be difficult right from the outset.  The first is that as we listen to allies, it’s going to turn out that many of them are going to say let’s have a trade strategy, let’s have an effective, outward, optimistic trade strategy and right now, the position formally if you will of both political parties in the United States, is ambiguous about trade and so we are going to have to think that through and understand that our ticket to the big game might be our military capability, that countries are looking for more and they want an open optimistic trade framework, standard setting, in which the United States engages.

The second issue frankly here is that the effort will be not just to engage Asian allies but European allies.  Now I’ve tried to do this in the past officially and elsewhere, it’s high time that we began a much more consequential dialogue between Europe and Asia about Asia.  I don’t think that’s an easy dialogue and I think all countries involved have different perspectives but we need to be more purposeful about it.  We’ve had discussions about climate change, about Afghanistan, about NATO, about the Balkans, now we have to apply the same intensity to the Asia Pacific region.  Reaching those different kinds of alliance relationships, I think are going to be challenging but they are nevertheless very important.  The other thing I would just simply say is that Americans love to talk about listening and taking on board stuff and I think psychologically it’s challenging for us, just to be honest!  So, the question will be, will we really be able to sit down and play that subtle diplomatic role that is so necessary in the current environment, in an environment in which many countries are questioning our staying power and our stability.

Then, lastly guys, every time China is confronted with a group of nations that are organising against them, there is no country better in splitting those countries like a court of wood.  Look at what China has done in the G20, very effective at blocking countries that seek to take common steps against them and so do not underestimate how challenging this dialogue with allies will be.  I do want to commend the Trump administration on the Quad, more can be done there but that’s not the only place we need in terms of institution building and that leads to the fourth area, institutions.  I think withdrawing from a number of institutions and investing modestly is not an option going forward.  We will need to re-join a number of institutions – the WHO, the Paris Accords – but we will have to double down on most of the engagements across Asia and they seem like just like, you know, ASEAN Regional Forum, the East Asia Summit, they seem like an alphabet soup of diplomatic engagements but increasingly Asians judge the United States by our attendance record and our engagement, they are a long way away.  I do want to commend Secretary Pompeo for a lot of engagement, we are going to have to also step up, the next administration, and spend much more time in building these institutions, engaging in difficult discussions and essentially seeking to build the capacity across the board.

If you compare Asia with Europe, Europe once its institutions, secretariats were built, that’s when many of these institutions really started to take off and show signs of life and durability and I expect the same thing to happen in Asia and the United States is going to have to lead that.  Then finally, Dean, I’ll conclude in just a moment, is really China, how to think about China going forward more directly and I do believe that the watchword of relations with China will be competition.  We will try to modify it with words like stable competition but that’s not just for us to decide and I think we have to recognise that this is a relationship unlike the former Soviet Union and people who fall back on Cold War metaphors.  I think the Cold War is a very poor framework for thinking about the US-China, not least of which because no country wants to make a fundamental decision of which side they’re on.  Also, middle powers are going to play effectively in that space but countries are divided through boardrooms and through government offices, with some wanting a closer relationship with China because of obvious economic reasons and others believing some sort of relationship with the United States and other Western institutions is essential.  So, that whole dynamic is going to continue, it’s extremely important and the framework for the US-China relationship is going to be multi-coloured, not black and white of the kind of relationship between the United States and the former Soviet Union going forward.

So, again, competition will be the watchword, hopefully stable but there are almost no guard rails on the US-China relations so the potential for inadvertence and accident is real and escalation on issues in the South China Sea, across the Taiwan Strait, we do not have the mechanisms in place that would manage an increasingly complex relationship like the United States and China.  I also think we tend to underestimate the nature of the interdependence between the United States and China.  I know there is a view that we will be able to permanently and decisively decouple and delink; I think certain elements of decoupling will continue in technology, 5G and the like but that process will be difficult and there will be areas where I think Chinese investment in the United States will be discouraged.  I think there will likely be some elements of retaliation in China.

I think we need to understand clearly by taking steps against China that there will be consequences and they will be painful and both countries will need to understand that moving away from interdependence will have economic consequences more generally but I believe that path is put in place generally and the key will be to balance these elements of competition and hedging with what I think will be elements and areas where members of the Biden team will desire a degree of engagement with China going forward and I think there is a view, Dean, that fundamentally, that the existential issues confining the United States and China – the pandemic, the tail-end of the pandemic hopefully, climate change, proliferation – that they demand a degree, not necessarily of cooperation but alignment or coordination going forward.  The interesting thing about the US-China relationship, a relationship that I’ve worked on and with for almost 30 years, is that we have almost no habits of cooperation, almost none so even though we work in alignment occasionally, the level of distrust has always been high and there’s very little structural cooperation in the Third World, in development, on a host of issues and trying to do that now in a period of heightened tensions will mean that it’s all the more difficult.

My hope and my belief is that there will be an effort to make clear – after a number of other engagements with allies – to China a desire to work and to try to find common ground.  The challenge here is – and I say this with respect, Chinese friends – every interaction is a negotiation, a constant search for leverage and so we have to recognise that and apply those lessons accordingly.  I think there is a tendency in Chinese interactions to view our outreach as a sign that we are an ardent suitor and we have to be careful about this.  The fact that China works with us on climate change is not a favour to the United States or the world, it’s in its own clear strategic interests and that’s going to be important for us to underscore as we going forward but finally, I will just say that the biggest issue, friends, the biggest issue for the United States is to dispel views and concerns and hopes, frankly, in China that across every boardroom and every Prime Minister’s office and leaders close set, and that is a view that the United States is in the midst of a hurtling decline and that the combination of a tragic performance on the pandemic, horrible social divisions in the United States and, as I said Dean at the outset, with re-evaluating American purposes in the world, suggest an America that is in many respects withdrawing from global politics.  I comfort myself by remembering that this is not the first time that this has happened.  During the Korean War, during the height of the Vietnam War, during the end of the Cold War, during the financial crisis in the 1990s and more recently, during the global economic crisis, each time there were voices in Asia that suggested that the United States was down and out and out for the count and that we were not going to be able to play the leadership role that we had in the past.  Each time we managed either to reinvent ourselves, recommit, find new areas of innovation and continue to play a leading dynamic role.

I will say that the challenges this time are greater than in the past, more domestic challenges, more of an international challenge with the arrival of China on the international scene but my hope is that in fact the United States can find the courage, the cunning, the effectiveness to continue to play a leading role with our allies in the Asia Pacific region going forward.  The only way that we will be successful is as your mission exemplifies, is that we do find some composure and commitment at the water’s edge to work together, as Democrats and Republicans, and allies on common purpose going forward, as we sit on the verge of a deeply historically consequential election.  The jury is still out as to whether we are going to be able to do it; my belief fundamentally is that we are, that’s why I went into this business and my hope is that working with allies and friends and with people who are like-minded and supportive on calls like this, accept the challenge and work together to make the Asia Pacific region continue to flourish and America and the Western world continue to thrive.

DEAN GODSON: Thank you, Kurt, for an outstanding presentation and if I can just ask our distinguished audience to please stick your electronic hands up and see who wants to ask question and get the flavour of the pace at which we need to take the questions, that would be hugely welcome, thank you.  Our first questioner is our distinguished Chairman of Trustees, Alexander Downer, previously High Commissioner of Australia in this country and a long-serving Australian Foreign Minister, known to you Kurt.  Alexander.

ALEXANDER DOWNER: Yes, Kurt, it’s nice to make contact with you again after a few years gap.  I was very impressed with the talk that you’ve just given and I thought it was very encouraging.  I know that you’re aware that Australia itself has been very exposed in recent times to China and Chinese aggression and that’s been a major problem for Australia.  I wondered whether a Biden administration would have a sense of trying to build a concept of greater collective security for, if you like, like-minded countries, particularly democratic or quasi-democratic countries in the Asia Pacific region?  And in that context, do you think a Biden administration would reverse the decision of the Trump administration to withdraw from the comprehensive and progressive Trans Pacific Partnership, it used to be called the TPP?

KURT CAMPBELL: Ambassador Downer, first of all let me, Dean, if I can, just compliment you, you have got a great team.  Minister Downer was a tremendous Foreign Minister, very purposeful, incredibly effective representative of Australia and has always been on the cutting edge of thinking about Australia’s role in the world.  I think what he describes is frankly a dramatic sea-change, at least by my accounting, that has taken place in Australia just in the last couple of years.  One of the things that’s interesting as an American who deeply loves Australia and works with Australia, I found for decades Australian friends generally felt the United States was too hard on China and there was too much risk of conflict and we needed to figure out how to work with China and that was often the consequence of an elite of Australian men, many were involved in the provision of the wherewithal for the Chinese economic miracle, all the natural resources and the like.  I think what’s happened and what Alex is referring to in the last couple of years is a dramatic sea-change with a recognition of Chinese activities inside of Australian domestic politics and the like and I think more recently, the example of Chinese warrior diplomacy against Australia and the steps they have taken on Bali and the like are particularly unfortunate and so largely as a result, Australia has never had the problem of being able to make sure that its views are known in a bipartisan way in both Democratic and Republican circles in Washington but others in the region are doing more than this.  So, what we are hearing of course from all of these countries is that the situation has changed rather substantially, dramatically.

In recent months you’ve seen a range of steps not just against Hong Kong but Australia, we’ve talked a little bit about Wolf Warrior diplomacy in Europe, the border incursions against India – we are facing something much different and there is both a security and political imperative of the United States being absolutely clear about standing with allies and that means Australia, Japan and others and, in addition, countries that are not quite allies but quasi, like India, we are working more closely with Vietnam and others to make clear to those countries that the United States is going to be purposeful and engaged.  So, Alex, I think my view would be that that message has been heard and made very clear and I think it basically accords with where Vice President Biden is as well.  I know quietly there are some concerns that somehow the United States is going to go back to this soft diplomacy that we have seen in various administrations and this is a bipartisan phenomenon, but that there’s not going to be a recognition of how much Asia has changed.  I think most of those are misplaced, there is a profound, deep understanding that we’re in a period of deep strategic competition and that standing with and by allies and also engaging first with allies to get their assessment of the regional situation with what the challenges and opportunities are, whether it’s in the Pacific or likewise, are going to be of central importance.

Alex, I wish I could give you a comforting and clear answer on what’s next on trade, the truth is I do not know.  I think there are a number of potential options out there, one is to resurrect TPP.  I think that’s hard in the short-term, I don’t think it’s very difficult politically, I think there are some that have suggested maybe a bilateral agreement, maybe some sort of electronic trade agreement; others are suggesting let’s put this aside for a while.  I will simply say, as you know better than I do, trade finds you and we will need to have a trade strategy going forward.  Given all the other things that are brewing right now, my guess is that this is going to take a little longer to formulate and what I am personally counting on when we open those dialogues with allies and friends, not only will we hear crucially from Australia about being clear-eyed about China, but also clear-eyed about our own role and how important a trade strategy will be going forward.

DEAN GODSON: Thank you, thank you so much for that answer. The next question is from the Right Honourable Lord Blencathra, distinguished former Conservative Chief Whip.  David, are you still in on the call?

LORD BLENTCATHRA:  Yes, thank you, Dean.  Dr Campbell, an absolutely outstanding contribution and like you I feel that the West has fallen way behind China in commercial and competitive terms and I deeply share the hope that the United States will be able to rise to the commercial and competitive challenge of China, but could I follow on from Alexander Downer’s question on military matters? The new Head of our Security Service, MI5, has said that whilst Russia is an irritation or aggravating, I think he called it, the real threat to democracy, to our future, to prosperity, is from China.  So, would you favour a new and extended NATO which brought in Australia, New Zealand, India, possibly Taiwan and South Korea and a NATO that was looking away from the Cold War in Europe and looking to the possible threats from the Far East?  Thank you.

KURT CAMPBELL: It’s a really interesting idea and I’ve heard some discussion of it.  I simply would say that probably the first step is to bridge the gap that exists.  There is a very elaborate culture and history and sociology of American diplomacy with Europe and likewise there is an engagement of the United States that is largely bilateral, with a series of countries in Asia.  Alex has talked about Australia, probably our closest ally right now but also Japan, South Korea and the Philippines and Thailand.  We tend, even though there are some signs of collective engagement, we tend to engage most of these countries on a bilateral basis and so the first steps I would suggest are simply going to be opportunities for collective dialogue, sharing of views, aligning principles for modalities on trade, defence and the like.  My experience – and this would be something [inaudible] and I both experienced this in the 90s when he was Foreign Minister, there was an attempt to build a defence ministerial in Asia and it was fascinating to see all the efforts that tried and failed, for a host of reasons.  One of the most important has been that diplomacy, multilateral diplomacy in Asia, does not begin with the alliances, it begins in South East Asia with ASEAN.  I know, for those who don’t follow this, but it’s intricate and that’s been the agreement going forward.

Now, ASEAN is less united than it has been in the past, largely because of China and I think it would be challenging just to move directly into some sort of formal alliance discussions and I think it’s much more likely that we would stumble in that effort and so I would probably … I am generally pretty ambitious when it comes to what to try more generally but I’m for taking some careful steps.  I’d like to see 5I’s to involve more Asian engagement; I do believe there are opportunities for Europe and Asian countries and allies to work together but I think towards a formalised defence pact, I think we are a way’s away from that and frankly, I think many countries in Europe would resist that right now, I don’t think they’re quite there.  I think some countries would say look, we need to have a common front but if we take these steps we’re going to make China an enemy and I think you are likely to hear that from voices in Continental Europe and so the key here is that listening component with allies and the United States is going to have to niftily and carefully both lead, listen, follow on occasion.  That’s a multi-year process and we have to do it in a period where we’re convincing other countries that we have our own house in order, which we do not right now.  So, this is a classic example of what’s going to be necessary in diplomacy going forward.

I just want to conclude with this: there are so many good books to read about how to think about this period ahead.  Often people in the United States refer to Kissinger’s great books on diplomacy and on China, for a framework of how to think about the challenges of Asia.  I would hark back actually to another book that is extraordinarily insightful about how to think about the diplomatic challenges, his first book that he wrote as a kid, I think just graduating from college, called A World Restored, about the tail-end of the European system and how Metternich kind of weaved it back together again to give it its last stages of survivable health.  I think the United States is going to have to really manoeuvre carefully and what’s going to be critical here is not overstepping but also not being comfortable with just a status quo as well.  That really requires the knowledge of the region, the tolerances of the countries you are dealing with, that just is something that only experience can bring and the counsel of good allies and friends.

DEAN GODSON: Thank you.  Baroness Faulkner, Independent member of House of Lords and distinguished member of Policy Exchange’s Indo-Pacific Commission, next question.

BARONESS FAULKNER: Thank you, Dean.  Thank you, Dr Campbell, for a really comprehensive and thought-provoking discussion this afternoon.  I completely agree with you about the wasted 20%, the focus that the West expended, has expended in the last 30 years on the Middle East to the detriment of building our relations in East Asia and the Indo-Pacific.  I also would make complete common cause with you on the reluctance to securitise our new forays through the expansion of NATO, I think that would be absolutely, as you say, not just send the wrong signal but it would put the countries that are likely to wish to have closer ties with us on the defensive because it would make them very overtly choose which side they were on and they have to tread much more carefully due to geographical proximity.  But my question to you is a slightly different one and it’s about values and the value, the previous relationship we had with China until Mr Trump came along, in the West, the EU as well as the US, was based on a sort of coexistence/cooperation but we recognise that we had very different values and had come from different trajectories but since Xi Jinping embraced capitalism that there was … we could do business together, to quote another former British Prime Minister.  I think the last few years on the authoritarianism in China under Mr Xi from 2013, emerging slowly from 2013, I think now puts us in a more difficult position because when your value systems diverge so profoundly, as to go beyond values, to endanger global security – and I’m thinking in the United Kingdom where Hong Kong is a live issue but I am also thinking longer terms about Taiwan and your own security arrangements with Taiwan, implicit though they are.  When you take things for example like the internet, where there’s what we call now a ‘splinternet’ so you have an authoritarian controlling capitalist-based form of e-commerce which is so divorced from our values and our concerns about e-commerce but nevertheless they have access to our marketplaces and our capitalist system but we don’t have access to them.  So, my question to you would be, to what extent is corporate America ready to stand behind a more cautious stand towards China and even a stand towards China where there may be commercial loss but that will be part of the price to be paid for the value system that the West upholds?

KURT CAMPBELL: Just great points and very well said.  I do want to make one point before I get into this question about what’s the role and responsibility of corporate citizens as we think about the way forward; this goes back to one of the previous questioners as well.  I think during the Cold War there were clear geographic lines and you knew what countries were with, what countries were not, we understood that and I think sometimes there is a tendency and even I see it among my compatriots to think in those terms, what countries are ‘with us’ , which countries are not?  I would say my experience of every country in Asia is that every country, even countries that are very proximate and small to China, want a relationship with the United States and even those countries that are deeply aligned historically, culturally, politically with the United States want a commercial relationship with China.  So, the truth is that right now the golden age of strategy is neither in the United States or China; the most interesting strategic opportunities for countries is for middle powers, middle powers like Japan, like Australia, like India, like Great Britain, that are manoeuvring between China and the United States, trying to get advantages in both, getting assurances on strategy and security on the one hand and careful commercial and economic engagement also with China.

My expectation, friends, is that that process is likely to continue.  I don’t believe there is likely to be events, even something like what we’ve seen in Hong Kong, that is going to cause major countries to decide, ah-ha, I’m going to side this side of the ledger.  Even Japan under Abe, very much aligned with the United States, Trump and Abe bond very powerful, if last year had not been about the pandemic, Abe would have finished his term in office with a tremendously successful Olympics and path-breaking diplomacy between China and Japan that would finally attempt to put history in the rear-view mirror and a different kind of relationship going forward.  I expect, friends, more of that, this kind of positioning and the United States needs to understand that that frankly is in our interests.  We should not force countries to choose one side of the ledger or the other, what we want is a system in place in which there are elements of that system that countries buy into aggressively and assertively and we define those elements and at the same time, that they present opportunities for continued Chinese engagement with us, even though we acknowledge all the things that have just been discussed in terms of what President Xi represents in terms of a new Chinese leader.

So, two last things if I could.  The one thing I would say about President Xi, he has done a lot of different things.  He has helped try to get out of the pandemic, he has continued Chinese growth but the most interesting thing – and in my view, in some ways the most troubling – a succession of Chinese leaders have gone through extraordinary steps to build the institutions of what might be described as collective leadership, forcing leaders to consult and engage with the members of the Standing Committee and others as they make decisions.  What President Xi has done since 2013 is breath-taking.  He has disassembled all these institutions that previous Chinese leaders built – Deng Xiaoping, Jiang and Hu and others – that would prevent the emergence of a leader like Mao who had unquestioned power and authority, which all Chinese leaders felt was the biggest threat to the Chinese system and of course now we have probably the most powerful Chinese leader.  So, sometimes it’s not clear if what we are seeing are just the proclivities of one person with very little connection with the Chinese bureaucracy or in fact if he represents a larger sway or trend in Chinese foreign policy and domestic policy.  The jury is still out on that more generally.

I will say just to your direct question, I spend a lot of time with American firms and I will tell you that the number one issue with most American firms is how to think about China going forward and the answer to your very good question is, it depends.  It depends on what sector or segment of the economy they’re in; if you’re a company that provides goods, if you are a Starbucks for instance – just naming that company – you’re watching whether there is any evidence of boycotts against your brand.  If you are a technology company, you’re thinking about relocating because you’re very worried about what the future brings and you are looking carefully at India, Malaysia and, most specifically, at Vietnam and you’re also thinking about bringing some capacity back to the United States.  If you’re in manufacturing, you’re hoping against hope that you have the right joint-venture partner and figuring out the way forward but every international company is looking anxiously.  All want a tougher approach that seeks a degree of reciprocity and protection of intellectual property rights; each company does not want to be made an example, they want a trade association or government to handle this for them because they’re wary and worried about retribution and so the question fundamentally will be: is China prepared for a degree of reciprocity, not just in business but in terms of journalists and numbers of diplomats and they have frankly been allowed to get away with uneven activities in which they have taken advantage of how you so ably described the openness of the Western system.  Now, I believe those days are largely gone, they’re numbered and China will either have to withdraw into itself or adjust to a West that has increasing demands for openness and I think the jury is still out about whether China is going to be prepared to take those steps.  The first step in that effort though is to show a united West that we’re serious about those things and I think right now the Chinese are still not sure.

QUESTION AND ANSWER

DEAN GODSON: Thank you, Kurt, for an outstanding presentation and if I can just ask our distinguished audience to please stick your electronic hands up and see who wants to ask question and get the flavour of the pace at which we need to take the questions, that would be hugely welcome, thank you.  Our first questioner is our distinguished Chairman of Trustees, Alexander Downer, previously High Commissioner of Australia in this country and a long-serving Australian Foreign Minister, known to you Kurt.  Alexander.

HON ALEXANDER DOWNER AC: Yes, Kurt, it’s nice to make contact with you again after a few years gap.  I was very impressed with the talk that you’ve just given and I thought it was very encouraging.  I know that you’re aware that Australia itself has been very exposed in recent times to China and Chinese aggression and that’s been a major problem for Australia.  I wondered whether a Biden administration would have a sense of trying to build a concept of greater collective security for, if you like, like-minded countries, particularly democratic or quasi-democratic countries in the Asia Pacific region?  And in that context, do you think a Biden administration would reverse the decision of the Trump administration to withdraw from the comprehensive and progressive Trans Pacific Partnership, it used to be called the TPP?

KURT CAMPBELL: Ambassador Downer, first of all let me, Dean, if I can, just compliment you, you have got a great team.  Minister Downer was a tremendous Foreign Minister, very purposeful, incredibly effective representative of Australia and has always been on the cutting edge of thinking about Australia’s role in the world.  I think what he describes is frankly a dramatic sea-change, at least by my accounting, that has taken place in Australia just in the last couple of years.  One of the things that’s interesting as an American who deeply loves Australia and works with Australia, I found for decades Australian friends generally felt the United States was too hard on China and there was too much risk of conflict and we needed to figure out how to work with China and that was often the consequence of an elite of Australian men, many were involved in the provision of the wherewithal for the Chinese economic miracle, all the natural resources and the like.  I think what’s happened and what Alex is referring to in the last couple of years is a dramatic sea-change with a recognition of Chinese activities inside of Australian domestic politics and the like and I think more recently, the example of Chinese warrior diplomacy against Australia and the steps they have taken on Bali and the like are particularly unfortunate and so largely as a result, Australia has never had the problem of being able to make sure that its views are known in a bipartisan way in both Democratic and Republican circles in Washington but others in the region are doing more than this.  So, what we are hearing of course from all of these countries is that the situation has changed rather substantially, dramatically.

In recent months you’ve seen a range of steps not just against Hong Kong but Australia, we’ve talked a little bit about Wolf Warrior diplomacy in Europe, the border incursions against India – we are facing something much different and there is both a security and political imperative of the United States being absolutely clear about standing with allies and that means Australia, Japan and others and, in addition, countries that are not quite allies but quasi, like India, we are working more closely with Vietnam and others to make clear to those countries that the United States is going to be purposeful and engaged.  So, Alex, I think my view would be that that message has been heard and made very clear and I think it basically accords with where Vice President Biden is as well.  I know quietly there are some concerns that somehow the United States is going to go back to this soft diplomacy that we have seen in various administrations and this is a bipartisan phenomenon, but that there’s not going to be a recognition of how much Asia has changed.  I think most of those are misplaced, there is a profound, deep understanding that we’re in a period of deep strategic competition and that standing with and by allies and also engaging first with allies to get their assessment of the regional situation with what the challenges and opportunities are, whether it’s in the Pacific or likewise, are going to be of central importance.

Alex, I wish I could give you a comforting and clear answer on what’s next on trade, the truth is I do not know.  I think there are a number of potential options out there, one is to resurrect TPP.  I think that’s hard in the short-term, I don’t think it’s very difficult politically, I think there are some that have suggested maybe a bilateral agreement, maybe some sort of electronic trade agreement; others are suggesting let’s put this aside for a while.  I will simply say, as you know better than I do, trade finds you and we will need to have a trade strategy going forward.  Given all the other things that are brewing right now, my guess is that this is going to take a little longer to formulate and what I am personally counting on when we open those dialogues with allies and friends, not only will we hear crucially from Australia about being clear-eyed about China, but also clear-eyed about our own role and how important a trade strategy will be going forward.

DEAN GODSON: Thank you, thank you so much for that answer. The next question is from the Right Honourable Lord Blencathra, distinguished former Conservative Chief Whip.  David, are you still in on the call?

LORD BLENTCATHRA:  Yes, thank you, Dean.  Dr Campbell, an absolutely outstanding contribution and like you I feel that the West has fallen way behind China in commercial and competitive terms and I deeply share the hope that the United States will be able to rise to the commercial and competitive challenge of China, but could I follow on from Alexander Downer’s question on military matters? The new Head of our Security Service, MI5, has said that whilst Russia is an irritation or aggravating, I think he called it, the real threat to democracy, to our future, to prosperity, is from China.  So, would you favour a new and extended NATO which brought in Australia, New Zealand, India, possibly Taiwan and South Korea and a NATO that was looking away from the Cold War in Europe and looking to the possible threats from the Far East?  Thank you.

KURT CAMPBELL: It’s a really interesting idea and I’ve heard some discussion of it.  I simply would say that probably the first step is to bridge the gap that exists.  There is a very elaborate culture and history and sociology of American diplomacy with Europe and likewise there is an engagement of the United States that is largely bilateral, with a series of countries in Asia.  Alex has talked about Australia, probably our closest ally right now but also Japan, South Korea and the Philippines and Thailand.  We tend, even though there are some signs of collective engagement, we tend to engage most of these countries on a bilateral basis and so the first steps I would suggest are simply going to be opportunities for collective dialogue, sharing of views, aligning principles for modalities on trade, defence and the like.  My experience – and this would be something [inaudible] and I both experienced this in the 90s when he was Foreign Minister, there was an attempt to build a defence ministerial in Asia and it was fascinating to see all the efforts that tried and failed, for a host of reasons.  One of the most important has been that diplomacy, multilateral diplomacy in Asia, does not begin with the alliances, it begins in South East Asia with ASEAN.  I know, for those who don’t follow this, but it’s intricate and that’s been the agreement going forward.

Now, ASEAN is less united than it has been in the past, largely because of China and I think it would be challenging just to move directly into some sort of formal alliance discussions and I think it’s much more likely that we would stumble in that effort and so I would probably … I am generally pretty ambitious when it comes to what to try more generally but I’m for taking some careful steps.  I’d like to see 5I’s to involve more Asian engagement; I do believe there are opportunities for Europe and Asian countries and allies to work together but I think towards a formalised defence pact, I think we are a way’s away from that and frankly, I think many countries in Europe would resist that right now, I don’t think they’re quite there.  I think some countries would say look, we need to have a common front but if we take these steps we’re going to make China an enemy and I think you are likely to hear that from voices in Continental Europe and so the key here is that listening component with allies and the United States is going to have to niftily and carefully both lead, listen, follow on occasion.  That’s a multi-year process and we have to do it in a period where we’re convincing other countries that we have our own house in order, which we do not right now.  So, this is a classic example of what’s going to be necessary in diplomacy going forward.

I just want to conclude with this: there are so many good books to read about how to think about this period ahead.  Often people in the United States refer to Kissinger’s great books on diplomacy and on China, for a framework of how to think about the challenges of Asia.  I would hark back actually to another book that is extraordinarily insightful about how to think about the diplomatic challenges, his first book that he wrote as a kid, I think just graduating from college, called A World Restored, about the tail-end of the European system and how Metternich kind of weaved it back together again to give it its last stages of survivable health.  I think the United States is going to have to really manoeuvre carefully and what’s going to be critical here is not overstepping but also not being comfortable with just a status quo as well.  That really requires the knowledge of the region, the tolerances of the countries you are dealing with, that just is something that only experience can bring and the counsel of good allies and friends.

DEAN GODSON: Thank you.  Baroness Faulkner, Independent member of House of Lords and distinguished member of Policy Exchange’s Indo-Pacific Commission, next question.

BARONESS FAULKNER: Thank you, Dean.  Thank you, Dr Campbell, for a really comprehensive and thought-provoking discussion this afternoon.  I completely agree with you about the wasted 20%, the focus that the West expended, has expended in the last 30 years on the Middle East to the detriment of building our relations in East Asia and the Indo-Pacific.  I also would make complete common cause with you on the reluctance to securitise our new forays through the expansion of NATO, I think that would be absolutely, as you say, not just send the wrong signal but it would put the countries that are likely to wish to have closer ties with us on the defensive because it would make them very overtly choose which side they were on and they have to tread much more carefully due to geographical proximity.  But my question to you is a slightly different one and it’s about values and the value, the previous relationship we had with China until Mr Trump came along, in the West, the EU as well as the US, was based on a sort of coexistence/cooperation but we recognise that we had very different values and had come from different trajectories but since Xi Jinping embraced capitalism that there was … we could do business together, to quote another former British Prime Minister.  I think the last few years on the authoritarianism in China under Mr Xi from 2013, emerging slowly from 2013, I think now puts us in a more difficult position because when your value systems diverge so profoundly, as to go beyond values, to endanger global security – and I’m thinking in the United Kingdom where Hong Kong is a live issue but I am also thinking longer terms about Taiwan and your own security arrangements with Taiwan, implicit though they are.  When you take things for example like the internet, where there’s what we call now a ‘splinternet’ so you have an authoritarian controlling capitalist-based form of e-commerce which is so divorced from our values and our concerns about e-commerce but nevertheless they have access to our marketplaces and our capitalist system but we don’t have access to them.  So, my question to you would be, to what extent is corporate America ready to stand behind a more cautious stand towards China and even a stand towards China where there may be commercial loss but that will be part of the price to be paid for the value system that the West upholds?

KURT CAMPBELL: Just great points and very well said.  I do want to make one point before I get into this question about what’s the role and responsibility of corporate citizens as we think about the way forward; this goes back to one of the previous questioners as well.  I think during the Cold War there were clear geographic lines and you knew what countries were with, what countries were not, we understood that and I think sometimes there is a tendency and even I see it among my compatriots to think in those terms, what countries are ‘with us’ , which countries are not?  I would say my experience of every country in Asia is that every country, even countries that are very proximate and small to China, want a relationship with the United States and even those countries that are deeply aligned historically, culturally, politically with the United States want a commercial relationship with China.  So, the truth is that right now the golden age of strategy is neither in the United States or China; the most interesting strategic opportunities for countries is for middle powers, middle powers like Japan, like Australia, like India, like Great Britain, that are manoeuvring between China and the United States, trying to get advantages in both, getting assurances on strategy and security on the one hand and careful commercial and economic engagement also with China.

My expectation, friends, is that that process is likely to continue.  I don’t believe there is likely to be events, even something like what we’ve seen in Hong Kong, that is going to cause major countries to decide, ah-ha, I’m going to side this side of the ledger.  Even Japan under Abe, very much aligned with the United States, Trump and Abe bond very powerful, if last year had not been about the pandemic, Abe would have finished his term in office with a tremendously successful Olympics and path-breaking diplomacy between China and Japan that would finally attempt to put history in the rear-view mirror and a different kind of relationship going forward.  I expect, friends, more of that, this kind of positioning and the United States needs to understand that that frankly is in our interests.  We should not force countries to choose one side of the ledger or the other, what we want is a system in place in which there are elements of that system that countries buy into aggressively and assertively and we define those elements and at the same time, that they present opportunities for continued Chinese engagement with us, even though we acknowledge all the things that have just been discussed in terms of what President Xi represents in terms of a new Chinese leader.

So, two last things if I could.  The one thing I would say about President Xi, he has done a lot of different things.  He has helped try to get out of the pandemic, he has continued Chinese growth but the most interesting thing – and in my view, in some ways the most troubling – a succession of Chinese leaders have gone through extraordinary steps to build the institutions of what might be described as collective leadership, forcing leaders to consult and engage with the members of the Standing Committee and others as they make decisions.  What President Xi has done since 2013 is breath-taking.  He has disassembled all these institutions that previous Chinese leaders built – Deng Xiaoping, Jiang and Hu and others – that would prevent the emergence of a leader like Mao who had unquestioned power and authority, which all Chinese leaders felt was the biggest threat to the Chinese system and of course now we have probably the most powerful Chinese leader.  So, sometimes it’s not clear if what we are seeing are just the proclivities of one person with very little connection with the Chinese bureaucracy or in fact if he represents a larger sway or trend in Chinese foreign policy and domestic policy.  The jury is still out on that more generally.

I will say just to your direct question, I spend a lot of time with American firms and I will tell you that the number one issue with most American firms is how to think about China going forward and the answer to your very good question is, it depends.  It depends on what sector or segment of the economy they’re in; if you’re a company that provides goods, if you are a Starbucks for instance – just naming that company – you’re watching whether there is any evidence of boycotts against your brand.  If you are a technology company, you’re thinking about relocating because you’re very worried about what the future brings and you are looking carefully at India, Malaysia and, most specifically, at Vietnam and you’re also thinking about bringing some capacity back to the United States.  If you’re in manufacturing, you’re hoping against hope that you have the right joint-venture partner and figuring out the way forward but every international company is looking anxiously.  All want a tougher approach that seeks a degree of reciprocity and protection of intellectual property rights; each company does not want to be made an example, they want a trade association or government to handle this for them because they’re wary and worried about retribution and so the question fundamentally will be: is China prepared for a degree of reciprocity, not just in business but in terms of journalists and numbers of diplomats and they have frankly been allowed to get away with uneven activities in which they have taken advantage of how you so ably described the openness of the Western system.  Now, I believe those days are largely gone, they’re numbered and China will either have to withdraw into itself or adjust to a West that has increasing demands for openness and I think the jury is still out about whether China is going to be prepared to take those steps.  The first step in that effort though is to show a united West that we’re serious about those things and I think right now the Chinese are still not sure.

DEAN GODSON: Thank you.  Hans Bathijer, Vice President of the British Canadian Chamber of Trade and Commerce, you have a question. Go on.  Thank you, if I can just ask a question on Chairman’s privilege for a moment because I think time is short and we have just a couple of moments left of your time.  You described the self-evident courtesy of the exchanges between yourself and Matt Pottinger which still might surprise people in this country in an era of greater polarisation within the United States and considering the magnitude of the issues, the fact that China obviously was a controversial subject for years in the US, who lost China question and so on, people might be very surprised by that and I’m just interested to reflect why, despite the controversial nature of so many of these questions, there can still be this measure of consensus at the moment in the US on the subject of China and the wider Indo Pacific?

KURT CAMPBELL: That’s a great question, Dean.  The irony is I’m a relatively bipartisan person, I think if you pose these questions to partisans – either Republican or Democrat – they would immediately resist that characterisation saying no, no, no, my policy is smarter, those guys did it wrong, they’ll give up the shop, all of that stuff but I think the real truth is this is an overriding challenge to the United States that is going to require deep conceptual thinking and all hands on deck and in that respect, neither party has cornered the market on knowledge and, as important Dean, I will say again the most interesting debates on this may not be between the two parties, there may be areas of broad consensus among certain elements in both parties but it’s within both parties you are going to find elements.  I believe there are elements within the Republican party that still support an internationalist approach and there are others that are more nativist and less interested in American leadership and would prefer a different kind of nativist stance on the global stage and similar trends in the Democratic party more generally but I do think you are on to something and I want to commend you with this lecture and this decision to bring us both together.  It so happens that Matt and I are friends and we’re careful, I think we will both carefully criticise one another and each of our positions but I also believe that there is a role for a certain degree of civility in the conduct of thinking about the future of American foreign policy and I’m grateful, I know of no other dialogue like this right now.  Of course, we have to go to London to do this but I’m grateful that you’ve done it and I think it’s a good first step and I do believe that some degree of bipartisanship as we think about Asia and China is going to be essential going forward.  Without it, we will in all likelihood fail.

DEAN GODSON: Thank you and just if I may conclude proceedings now saying that this has been an innovative Colin Cramphorn Memorial Lecture, as I say the family are hugely appreciative of you coming and doing this and your performance here today in this way.  Just to say, we’ll be keeping the flag flying in this space and the honour that you’ve done in the memory of our fallen friends who left us too early, we’ll be doing much more in this space with our own Indo Pacific Commission chaired by, as I said earlier, by former Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper.  It’s amongst the most important issues in the world today, not least in the run up to the UK government’s own integrated review, perhaps the most important review of UK security foreign defence policy since the end of the Cold War and it’s an important mission for us all to keep that going and I just want to thank you for delivering your lecture today in accordance with the very highest standards of this important keynote event.  Thank you from Washington, thank you from all of us here, thank you to everybody coming in and we’ll be putting out both lectures, Matt’s is already online with the transcript, we’ll be doing the same for the second part of this Cramphorn Lecture.  Goodnight to you all, thank you for coming, thank you Kurt.