So first of all I want to look at China’s rise in Asia as it’s growing and because its been rising in Asia for 20 years we can measure this now, we can see how they are doing in this regard and then I want to look at it in the context of the United States comparing it to the United States in Asia and there I want to lay out some elements of what I think its why the United States is the leading power in Asia, and we can therefore see in fact if US is in decline or not, so those are the two things I hope to do. So let’s look at first China’s rise in Asia for its own sake, we’ve had 20 years of this process. One thing that doesn’t get discussed very much but is very much on the minds of the government officials around China’s [rim] is that the People’s Republic of China has been in existence for 60 years, has for 40 years was the most disruptive element in Asia. Now nobody talks about this anymore its not polite to talk about this but it is a reality that’s very much taken into account by the various government officials around the [rim] of China, and what I’m I talking about I’m talking about insurgencies supported by [Mao Zedong] all sorts of activities in the region which I can go into detail we have time today but this continued under Dong [Shao] Ping, when I do this with audiences in China I say do you remember the [Khmer Rouge], does anybody in this group remember the [Khmer Rouge]?

Chinese were with the [Khmer Rouge] every step of the way, not because they liked what the [Khmer Rouge] were doing but because it was in their interest to be supportive of the [Khmer Rouge]. And so when the Vietnamese came out and draw the [Cameros] out of Cambodia, they were driven to the Tai border and they are in the Tai border were the Chinese advisors along with the [Camerouge] fighters and they stayed there and continued fighting against the Vietnamese for another 10 years, and then somewhat and this isn’t just [Maustic [IB]. Mau died in 1976 Dong [Shao] Ping took steps against South East Asia when it was in his interest they were very forceful, he invaded Vietnam because they went in and took over the Cambodia and he was through but then for 10 years they kept up pressure against the Vietnamese. And what does that mean keeping up pressure, some days the Chinese shot 10,000 shells into Vietnam, that’s to show them their determination. I used to ask my specialist in government I said how can you shoot 10,000 shells in one day? And he says if you have enough canon you can do it and so they used to do this just to show their determination.

And so the record of China in Asia is really bad, it’s going to take the People’s Republic of China a long time to reassure the governments of Asia, and the second point I would make here is that China has its move forward witness reassurance policy towards the governments in Asia has done so in a way that’s made some mistakes. In the middle of the ‘90s they were a little bit too assertive and so they are in the South China sea and particularly in dealing with the Taiwan issue in the [Taiwan] space crisis of 95/96, so they shifted to an approach that was very much focused on reassuring the neighbors things worked very well, so in 95/96 they really pushed this policy very well and the governments responded very well too but they didn’t, what they didn’t do though is reassure the United States they were still from this period very adamant publicly against the United States for a whole range of reasons but particularly for the US alliance system in Asia, totally at odd. So I have Mr. Hu Jintao the president of China today he’s sort of an mild mannered sort of guy, he’s rallying against the Americans in Indonesia in 2000 well this didn’t work this policy was a mistake because when they face the Asian governments with this choice, when you choose China’s approach or you choose the American approach they don’t want to choose and so the Chinese have to shift their approach that was one reason, there were other reasons that they shifted their approach and by 2002 – 2003 the Chinese adopted an approach which was focused on reassuring America, this is called the peaceful rise, peaceful development approach and they very much wanted to avoid the complications that would come if they were confrontational with America and that’s been basically their approach since but my point here is is that as Chinese rise in Indonesia it hasn’t really had an open field and it’s made mistakes and it’s had to adjust.

And the third point that I would in looking at China and Asia is to just okay we’ve had 20 years of experience of China rising in Asia since the cold war this has been going on since 1989 how are they doing? We can measure this and so what are the other big powers in Asia well Russia, Japan and India, how are the Chinese doing with those, with Japan anybody here thinks that China and Japan relations are good, everybody knows they are terrible I mean they are not awful and since they are going to go to war but they are not good. India, China’s relations with India today are worse considerably worse than they were six or seven years ago and arguably China’s relations with Russia they are okay but they are not, I think they are somewhat worse than they were in 2001 and 2002. Now let’s take middle powers, South Korea in 2004 Chinese and South Korea relations were very close today they are very mixed and not very close. Australia in 2004 the ambassador to Australia from China was like a rock star everybody loved her anything she said they just thought she was terrific well those days are gone and you have this very mixed relationship that Australia has, Australia discussed a big defense plan which is designed to balance against China among other things. And then you look in Southeast Asia where China has made the greatest consistent games. Would you have a reconfiguration of forces in Southeast Asia where the traditional leader of South East Asia has reemerged? Indonesia, and historically I think today Indonesia is the power in the South East Asia that is the least likely to band wagon with China. And so when you look around the rim of China you say it’s making some progress, things are developing, does China lead? Does China dominate ahead of these countries? No, has there been any breakthrough? The only place there’s been a breakthrough ironically is with Taiwan. China has made a breakthrough with Taiwan.