Dr. Sutter: I didn’t mention much on North Korea, if you are looking for [in cumbered] rice think about having a friend like North Korea, this is a big drag on China. To deal with this problem and they have to deal with it and it’s very uncertain, and has tremendous implication for China. And so their approach is to keep stability, their approach is to keep it calm if they can and to basically try to work something so that the situation doesn’t blow up in a way that will be very detrimental for china’s development and so they don’t want North Korea to collapse, they prefer it be built up to be a more viable state following perhaps the reforms that china carried out those kinds of reforms. But the chances of that are pretty remote at that point, and so they are just dealing the best they can with what they’re are prepared to do up to this point.

But to me it’s a big drag on china’s influence in the region, and it complicates their situation. Look at how it has complicated the relation with South Korea over the last year, and they had a good relationship with South Korea, but it’s not so good now. On Afghanistan the Chinese are very wary of the US position in Afghanistan, they obviously don’t like terrorists they can be a problem in china. So in mixed feelings, but this uptake of the US involvement is something that many Chinese specialists find very worrisome. And because they think it won’t work, and if doesn’t work and you have this enormous build up of militant forces in Afghanistan, and then the US leaves. The US can leave but China is still there and they don’t want to be in that position. I mean it makes a lot of sense so their interests are very mixed, they will do certain things to help with the Afghan Administration but they’re not going to be getting involved on the military side, they’re not really supportive of what the United States is doing in Afghanistan. And they are not against it per say, but they are not very supportive. And so they are trying to [straddle] the fence, just like how they deal with the Middle East. How do they deal with the Saudi’s and the Iranians? They have to, they constantly [straddle] the fence and it’s understandable. But that’s where they are in Afghanistan it seems to me.

Interviewer: Okay. I think that’s it for today and thank you again Dr Sutter for your insightful analysis, and a thanks to everyone.

Dr. Sutter: Thank you.

[APLAUSE]

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