That is this incredible desire at the leader level to keep warm ties going for each of their individual reasons, whether you're talking about Donald Trump or Xi Jinping, while the rest of the system increasingly continues to posture for a set of very difficult policies and exchanges that are likely to go on for years.

It's very well put, Mira.

And I would just underscore this.

In many respects, there is no historical analog for the United States in which you see leaders seeking warmer relations, while at the same time, the systemic dynamics draw them in a different direction.

I think Frankly, what we see when we look at history is some of these dynamics took place in Europe in which European nobility and leaders tried to make nice at the same time.

that their militaries and governments were preparing for inevitable hostilities.

We saw that in the run-up to World War I, and frankly, during periods of the sort of European consequential period in the 1800s.

kind of distraction consumption with Iran... that cut in the same direction as this Trump-Xi summit? Or are these kind of opposing forces that bring downward pressure on the region as a whole?

A-and I'm hoping you can talk a little bit about how you thought about achieving that.

Yeah.

Well, first, thanks again, Henrietta.

I, I will say the idea of tracking or monitoring or rating American power is not unique to China, particularly in the Indo-Pacific.

It has been a practice of leadership and strategists in the Indo-Pacific, frankly, for decades.

And the idea or the concept or the belief in American decline has been a thoroughgoing affair, frankly, for decades.

And it's interesting how many times Asian elites have predicted that the United States was on the way down.

The readouts from both sides were brief and conflicting, with President Trump saying that it was all about trade and the Chinese, for their part, saying, "Well, we actually talked about Taiwan, we talked about Chinese students, we talked about broader issues." And what are the tea leaves that you read to try and understand what's really going on in those conversations?

What's the case that optimistic path is in fact possible? It's not just that we shouldn't be fatalistic, but there's actually an opportunity that didn't look so real even two years ago.

Well, first, Dan, again, thank you very much for having us.

And Mark, it's a pleasure to be with you and look forward to discussing the elements of each of our pieces.

So look, I would just simply say we're using a lot of concepts like optimism, pessimism.

I think at the core of our piece, I think, is a realism and a hard-headed recognition both across the Atlantic and with our Indo-Pacific partners of the kinds of challenges that are animating the global system, particularly the challenge presented from China in technology, military overcapacity, and the like.

And we believe that that has brought forward a degree of alignment that in many ways is unprecedented.

I would also just simply say that our piece really is not about resurrecting or going back to the past.

Some of it is not out of step with historical norms, and not all of it is necessarily going to depart from what we mentioned earlier, the very real convergence of concern about the China-Russia challenge.

There's plenty written about Trump and what he's like, but what is Modi like, and do you think his personality is such that's exacerbating the situation, or is he the source of potential solutions?

Well, you know, it's a complex question, James.

I would simply say I have rarely interacted with a more charismatic, dynamic leader.

He has a very strong sense of where he wants to take India.

That's obvious.

And he is quite a durable politician, having won and stood for election three times in India.

It's one of the roughest and, you know, rough and tumble political establishments.

Do you want to talk a little bit about this report and why you decided to put it out now?

Right.

Hoping for a few minutes to get him briefed up and wondering if he's looked at the briefing papers.

What you have to remember, Jake, I don't need to tell you and John this, like, the scarcest resource, uh, is not our precision m- uh, munitions.

It's, it, it's not, you know, where our fleet is.

It's the time and attention of the senior-most people, and that starts with the President of the United States.

It is well known that remarkably little preparation has gone on in advance of this trip.

The President has dispatched Secretary Bessent and the USTR to China for some last-minute sort of, you know, 11th hour negotiations.

Right.

So do you read Beijing's willingness to have this summit at the original date at the end of March? as a view that President Trump would be coming to Beijing from a position of weakness and therefore let's have it?

To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure that is accurate.

I think the Chinese believe that right now their interests lie in trying to stabilize a very complicated relationship.

Dilipin will get into this on technology or economics.

But I would just say this interesting question.

about what does the Gulf War mean, this ongoing challenge against Iran? What does it mean for China as they look into the future? It is profoundly mixed, and all complex developments on the international stage have a number of aspects.

On the one hand, so there is no country that studies military operations more closely than China.

Is there a risk from the Houthis to that oil flowing from the Red Sea, which would exacerbate the whole supply situation?

Kurt Campbell, how much do we know about why this might have happened, and what does this say about how Xi Jinping runs the army-

Mm ... and the country? The truth is, we know very little about the inner workings of how President Xi and the party makes decisions on really anything at the very top, but particularly military affairs.

I think there have been theories of the case about why he has moved against some senior military, uh, people in the CMC, but also a- among the senior military more generally.

Some have believed it is about going against corruption and efficiency, military leaders who are not prepared for really getting China fighting ready.

I think there is, um, more a belief that this time, that there may be political motivations behind it.

The CMC had gained some-

Maybe Boeing, engines.

Well, yeah, we'll get to- but, but those states are very important with respect to upcoming elections.

Talk about that a bit.

So the idea here is that the strategic ambiguity as applied to Taiwan was would the United States in a moment of crisis come to Taiwan's aid? And the way that we've managed that historically is being careful about directly saying which direction that we would lean towards and also urging both sides to basically play it cool and to understand the benefits of continued existence of the status quo of Taiwan's ability to live in peace and prosperity.

I think what I'd suggest is that this larger strategic ambiguity really comes down to what would President Trump do if the chips were down in a larger framework in the Indo-Pacific? Would he side with China? We've seen some ambivalence and uncertainty in the situation, for instance, between Russia and Ukraine.

I think many of our allies in the Indo-Pacific want to be reassured that the United States continues to support the traditional alliance structures.

That means our partnerships with Japan and and South Korea and Australia and our new found friends in countries like India.

I think behind closed doors, there are some areas of anxiety about just where President Trump stands here.

I think one of the reasons that the Japanese prime minister, after her recent election, wants to come to Washington before President Trump goes to Beijing is precisely for the reason to seek reassurances and to try to bolster President Trump to be firm with President Xi more generally.

How much damage do you think, as the architect of a lot of that strategy, how much damage do you think we've done to the US standing vis-a-vis China?

Uh, in retrospect, did you guys not see this coming, the extent of strategic partnership between Beijing and Moscow?

I think many of us were surprised at the depth of the engagement that China has undertaken, uh, with respect to its military and, uh, other technological support for Russia in its brutal war, uh, with Ukraine.

Um, I think the Trump administration comes to power, Nick, with a view that somehow they're going to be able to split this alliance that has emerged between, um, Beijing and Moscow.

I think that is wrong.

The best approach is to put pressure on China with respect to its, uh, mili- its, uh, energy purchases, um, from Russia, but also gather our partners around us.

And I think the, the juxtaposition of this remarkable gathering that, uh, Xi has put together in, uh, Beijing is the, uh, relative disarray of American partners, all of whom are deeply anxious about the trade negotiations they've experienced with Washington over the course of the last couple of months.

Does that message of deterrence, is that effective?

There's nothing really of surprise in terms of what's been rolled out.

Kurt, could you elaborate more on a comparison of the US and Chinese military?

Let me just say that the US military remains the gold standard.

We have tremendous operational capacity.

The United States, over the course of the last 40 years, has been in conflict in many domains on a number of occasions and there's nothing like, frankly, in the operational military realm, nothing like experience to ensure that best practices and evolution more generally.

Where China really has not fought in any fundamental way and seen shots fired in anger since really along the Vietnamese border in 1979, 1980.

That's a long time.

And so there are clear advantages that come with being forward deployed and engaged.

And we know those countries, it's Russia, Iran, and North Korea.

Despite the- th- this sort of thin vein of continuity that has traveled through the administrations, what part of the Trump analysis of China do you currently think is mistaken?

Yeah.

Thank you.

It's a great question.

I, I will point out one of the things that very few commentators sort of acknowledge is that there are actually quite a few similarities between President Trump and President Biden.

They're both of a similar age.

They're both concerned and animated by a sense that, uh, local communities that they had grown up in had been, um, hollowed out.

So, that's my initial gloss here, but what's your determination of what parts of the China formula can be Americanized versus what parts really will be tough to import from across the Pacific?

worry.You- you mean 2003, not 1991, in that case, I assume?

2003, yeah, the invasion of Iraq.

I think there is the real, uh, fear that that is the case.

And- and now we're in a situation in which, yes, we've entered into these 90-odd negotiations, but if we look back on some of the most difficult negotiations that the United States has ever entertained with respect to economic and trade relations, uh, we all understand that some of the biggest impediments are structural and systemic, they're not just tariffs.

The idea that we're gonna resolve all of these issues in 90 states through fast-track negotiations in a couple of weeks is- is pretty much foolhardy.

And I think one of the challenges that the Trump team has perhaps inadvertently signaled is the idea that they're going to be able to accomplish large strategic purposes, either in Ukraine or in trade, in very short periods of time.

And we've already seen that ship, um, crash on the rocks on Ukraine with the Trump team, I think, reluctantly coming to the conclusion that despite the concessions, that Putin has no intention of basically backing off.

You're, you're, you're out of government, and out of government, all we do is speculate, so...