John Donvan:

And with that round of applause, let’s extend it, and please welcome Bob Rosenkranz to

the stage.

[applause]

Robert Rosenkranz:

Hello, John.

John Donvan:

Hi, Bob. Mic is on the seat there.

Robert Rosenkranz:

Right. Thank you.

John Donvan:

Bob and I normally chat a little bit about how we came to be doing this topic at this

time. And an interesting thing about this one, Bob, is we’ve been thinking about this

one for three years, which makes it, tonight, more or less timely than ever.

Robert Rosenkranz:

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Well, yeah. I — I had, about three years ago, attended a conference in Singapore, a

security — regional security conference. And I heard a speech. The key note speech was

by Chuck Hagel, who was our secretary of defense at the time. And he talked about the

universal values of human rights, of democracy, of freedom. And he talked about our

role, our pivot then toward Asia and the things we were doing to coordinate defense

with Korea, with Japan, with Indonesia, with India and various kinds of weapons systems

that we were supplying as part of that pivot.

And after his speech, a lady from the audience got up, and she was wearing a military

uniform, and she turned out to be a Chinese major-general. And she said, “Well, I have

a question. What you describe as maintaining regional stability, sounds to us a lot like

encirclement and containment. And what you describe as universal values, sounds to us

like interference with our domestic sovereignty. Do you have any words to say that

would give us reassurance?” to which Hagel said, “humm-n-a, humm-n-a, humm-n-a–”

[laughter]

John Donvan:

So did this general have a point?

Robert Rosenkranz:

Well, she — she raised, I think, a very interesting strategic point that ought to inform the

discussion tonight, and it’s that each side in a — in a — in a strategic contest almost

always will assume the worst intentions from the other side. And that’s simply the

prudent thing to do. So her read of our intentions was — was the read that she should

have in her role and — and our having a kind of negative read of China’s intentions is

what we should be doing. But with that in mind, and realizing that intentions are liable

to be misled — misread, each side to this both U.S. and China strategically have to feel

each other out in a very smart and sensible way. China’s not going to accept a coalition

of democratic states whose purpose is to restrain and hem in China and maybe change

their domestic rules of governance.

And we’re not going to accept being ejected from the Asia-Pacific region and leaving all

of our allies to fend for themselves against a powerful hegemonic power. So we have to

have realistic expectations. China has to have realistic expectations, and those

expectations have to be adjusted in a strategically smart way.

John Donvan:

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And — and they have shifted some what in the last three years, so I’m wondering, were

we wise to wait these three years to get to tonight.

Robert Rosenkranz:

Well, I think tonight’s debate could have been held three years ago. It could be held

today. It can probably be held three years from now or six years from now, because the

challenge of accommodating the shifting power relationships in Asia is a huge challenge,

and a long-term project.

And to me, it’s analogous to the challenge that the world faced in the first half of the

20th century of accommodating a rising Germany. And we see the disastrous

consequences of that kind of situation being handled poorly by leaders on all sides. So I

think this is an evergreen debate. And I’m anxious to have it.

John Donvan:

Well, I think it’s going to be great. And we’ll see that when we welcome our debaters to

the stage. Let’s do that right now. And thank you, Bob Rosenkranz.

Robert Rosenkranz:

Thank you.

[applause]

John Donvan:

There will be times during the evening again for the sake of the podcast and the radio

broadcast in which I will ask you to applaud spontaneously.

[laughter]

And the signal will be — I think you’re already sort of on line on this one, but if it’s not

sort of happening I’ll give you one of those and would appreciate it. And also there are

bits of business that I need to do again for the radio broadcast. I’ll say things like, “We’ll

be back right after this.”

[laughter]

And you’ll see that I don’t actually go anywhere.

[laughter]

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So I just want to explain that it’s not insanity or dementia but that it’s for the radio

broadcast. And I’d like to start, in fact, by asking you again for one more of those

spontaneous rounds of applause.

[applause]

So eight presidents, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, and Obama, have

all pursued in varying degrees a cooperative relationship with the great, glorious, and

growing China, the People’s Republic of, a partnership that was forged in the beginning

primarily to balance power against the Soviet Union, but it also took shape at a time

when China was frankly relatively weak at least economically and militarily was certainly

an underdog.

But that’s all changed now. The Soviet Union is gone, and China is big, modern,

sophisticated, and becoming very well armed. So the question is, is that a good thing for

this partnership, is it going to lead to a deepening, or are we seeing the seeds of a rivalry

sown that will inevitably sprout across the Pacific as hostility? And, if so, what will China

represent to the next president and the next president and the next president?

Well, that sounds like the makings of a debate, so let’s have it, “Yes,” or, “No,” to this

statement, “China and the U.S. Are Long-term Enemies,” a debate from Intelligence

Squared U.S. I’m John Donvan. We are at the Kaufman Music Center in New York City

with four superbly qualified debaters who will argue for and against the motion, “China

and the U.S. Are Long-term Enemies.”

As always, our debate will go in three rounds, and then our live audience here in New

York will vote to choose the winner, and only one side wins. The motion, again, “China

and the U.S. Are Long-term Enemies.” Let’s meet the team arguing for the

motion. Please, ladies and gentlemen, welcome Peter Brookes.

[applause]

And, Peter, you are a former deputy assistant secretary of Defense for Asia and Pacific

Affairs and a member of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. You

are also a military man, a graduate of Annapolis, a Navy commander. You served in the

NSA and the CIA, which suggests that you might know some stuff that the rest of us

don’t know. Curious to know what keeps you up at night.

[laughter]

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Peter Brookes:

Well, actually I’ve been a bit sleepless. I was reading my colleague here on my side of

the motion, John Mearsheimer’s, biography, and I found out he went to West Point.

[laughter]

So, you know, being an Annapolis graduate, that’s a bit troubling. But being the giver

that I am, I decided that I’ll call a truce for tonight and until the Army-Navy game.

John Donvan:

All right, thanks very much, Peter Brookes, and —

[laughter]

[applause]

— and we want to give you the chance to introduce your partner once more.

Peter Brookes:

That’s right. Well, sitting next to me and on this side of the motion is Professor John

Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago.

John Donvan:

And he is also the author of several books, including one published in 2001 called, “The

Tragedy of the Great Power Politics” — “The Tragedy of Great Power Politics.” In that,

John Mearsheimer, you predicted an aggressive and destabilizing rise of China. We’ve

heard you say that when you go out to China, which you do, that you’re like a fish out of

water over there with one exception. Intellectually, you say, you’re in your element

when you’re in China. What do you mean by that?

John Mearsheimer:

Well, I’m a realist, a realpolitiker, and virtually all the Chinese I know, both policymakers

and scholars, are realists at their core. So we speak the same language, and we think

about international politics almost exactly the same way.

John Donvan:

Thank you, John Mearsheimer.

[applause]

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The team arguing for the motion, “China and the U.S. Are Long-term Enemies.” And we

have two debaters arguing against that motion. Please, ladies and gentlemen, first

welcome Robert Daly.

[applause]

Robert Daly. You’re director of the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States at

the Wilson Center. You lived in China 11 years. You served at the U.S. Embassy there

and in the ’90s, very fun fact, you helped produce the Chinese language version of

Sesame Street.

Robert Daly:

Yes I did.

[laughter]

John Donvan:

You’ve also — you’re also a trained interpreter. You’ve interpreted between Jiang Zemin

and Jimmy Carter, but apparently they were not the most difficult interpreting

assignments you ever had, because what were the most difficult assignments?

Robert Daly:

Yes, that would be Dr. Henry Kissinger at the bottom of one octave and Elmo the

Muppet about three octaves up.

[laughter]

Equally lucid speakers, but sometimes difficult to follow.

[laughter]

John Donvan:

And we’ve been trying so hard to get Elmo on this stage.

[laughter]

This is the closest we’re going to come. Tell us Robert Daly who your partner is.

Robert Daly:

I’m very pleased to be working today with Kevin Rudd, the former prime minister of

Australia, former Australian ambassador to Beijing, and the current president of the Asia

Society Policy Institute.

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John Donvan:

Ladies and gentlemen, Kevin Rudd.

[applause]

And Kevin, with that introduction, it establishes you actually as the highest-ranking

former government official of any kind in the world we’ve ever had on our stage. It’s an

honor to have you here, all the way from Australia.

[applause]

You are also a long-time China scholar. You are fluent in Mandarin and you even have a

Chinese name given to you by a Chinese teacher. What is it?

Kevin Rudd:

Well, I should add three disclaimers. I’ve never been to Annapolis. Never been to West

Point. In fact, I got kicked out of Boy Scouts.

[laughter]

And I was never ambassador for Australia in Beijing. I was a humble first secretary,

which is the guy who carries the bags.

[laughter]

My Chinese name given to me by my teacher was Lù Kèwén.

John Donvan:

What does that mean?

Kevin Rudd:

It means a continental overcomer of the classics.

[laughter]

John Donvan:

Can the classics be overcome? Did you do that?

Kevin Rudd:

No, and 40 years later they remain un-overcome.

[laughter]

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John Donvan:

Ladies and gentlemen, the team arguing against the motion.

[applause]

So this is a debate. There will be winners and losers and you, our live audience here in

New York, will determine who gets victory by your vote. By the time the debate has

ended we will have had you vote twice, once before you hear the arguments and once

again after you hear the arguments, and we determine victory by the measurement that

comes from the difference between the two teams’ first and second votes in percentage

point terms. Let’s register your first vote. If you go to the keypad at your seat, please

take a look at the motion: China and the U.S. Are Long-Term Enemies.

If you agree with this motion push number one. If you disagree push number two. And

if you’re undecided number three is the button for you. You can ignore the other

ones. Just hold that button down until you see the light come on and that will tell you

where your vote is. And we’ll lock it about in about 15 seconds. At the end of the

debate when we do the same thing, after you vote it’s about a two minute lag between

the time we close the vote and the time we have the results, so it happens quite

quickly. Okay. Let’s move on to round one. We’re moving on to round one, opening

statements by each debater in turn. Our motion is this: China and the U.S. Are LongTerm

Enemies. Speaking first for the motion and making his way to the lectern, John

Mearsheimer, professor of political science and co-director of the program on

international security policy at the University of Chicago. Ladies and gentlemen, John

Mearsheimer.

[applause]

John Mearsheimer:

It’s a pleasure to be here. I’d like to thank the organizers for inviting me and thank all of

you folks for coming out to listen to us debate this issue tonight. Of course Peter and I

are going to make the argument that China will be a long-term enemy of the United

States. I want to start with two preliminary points. One is the argument here is not that

we’re destined to fight a war. It’s that these two countries will be long-term

enemies. You want to remember that during the Cold War the United States and Soviet

Union were enemies, but they never fought a war thankfully, and we’re not arguing that

that is the case with regard to China. We’re just saying they’re going to be enemies.

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Second, when you talk about the future, there’s no way you can talk about it without a

theory of international politics or a theory of great power politics. And the reason is we

have no evidence about the future because the evidence isn’t there because the future

hasn’t happened yet.

So you need a theory to explain what you think is going to happen and that theory, of

course, has to be able to explain past cases where great powers rose and fell, and it has

to be applicable to the present as well. So the division of labor between me and Peter

this evening is that I’m going to lay out the simple theory that explains why China and

the United States are destined to compete with each other, to have an intense security

competition that involves arms races, crises, proxy wars and so forth and so on. And

then what Peter’s going to do when he follows me, is he’s going to show you all the

evidence that’s already out there that supports the story that I’m going to tell you. My

story basically goes like this: If you look at the international system the way it’s

organized, there are three characteristics of that system that force states to compete

for power and to pursue greater and greater increments of power.

The first characteristic of the system is that there is no higher authority that sits above

states. There’s no night watchman. States are like pool balls on a table. That means

that if a state gets into trouble, there’s nobody it can turn to rescue. As I like to say to

students, “In the international system, when you dial 911, there’s nobody at the other

end.” That means it is, in effect, a self-help system. That’s characteristic

one. Characteristic two is that all states have some offensive military capability, and

there are invariably a few states that have a lot of offensive military capability. The

third feature of the system has to do with intentions. It’s almost impossible to divine

the future intentions of other states because we don’t even know who’s going to be

running China in five years or 10 years or 15 years. We don’t know who’s going to be

running the United States in five, 10, or 15 years.

What this means is that when you operate in a world where there’s no higher authority

you can turn to when you get into trouble, and you may end up next to a store — a

country that’s very powerful and has malign intentions, you quickly figure out that the

best way to survive is to be very powerful. As we used to say, when I was a young boy in

New York City playgrounds, you want to be the biggest and baddest dude on the block,

not because you’re malicious or you have bad intentions, but it’s the best way to

survive, because the more powerful you are, the safer you are. Now, what this means in

practical terms is that states want to, number one, dominate their region of the world,

and number two, they want to make sure they don’t have a peer competitor. That

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means you want to make sure there’s not another state in the system that dominates its

region of the world like you do.

Let’s talk a little bit about the United States. The United States is the only regional

hegemon in modern history. Most Americans don’t think about this, but the Founding

Fathers and their successors went to enormous lengths to ensure that we would

dominate the Western hemisphere. That involved conquering huge swaths of territory

and making sure that the power gap between us and Mexico and us and Canada, us and

Brazil, us and Guatemala, was enormous so that they could not cause us any

trouble. Second thing we did was we instituted the Monroe Doctrine. We basically

threw the European great powers out of the Western hemisphere and told them that

they were not welcome back in here, because we did not want any distant great powers

coming into the Western hemisphere. That was all about establishing hegemony in the

Western hemisphere.

Second goal, which is reflected in U.S. foreign policy in the 20th century, is to make sure

we do not have a peer competitor. There were four potential peer competitors in the

20th century: Imperial Germany, Imperial Japan, Nazi Germany, and the Soviet Union.

The United States played a key role not only in making sure each one of those countries

did not dominate either Europe or Asia, but also played a key role in putting all four of

those countries on the scrapheap of history. The United States does not tolerate peer

competitors. And the United States, to go back to my first point, is deeply committed to

dominating the Western hemisphere. Now let’s talk about China. As China gets more

and more powerful — and that’s going to happen — the question you have to ask

yourself is what will China do with all that military power? My argument is that China

will imitate the United States. They’d be crazy not to. They’re going to try to dominate

Asia the way we dominate the Western hemisphere. If you’re in Beijing and you’re a

national security adviser, don’t you want a China that is much more powerful than all its

neighbors? The Chinese understand full well what happened the last time they were

weak. They call it the century of national humiliation.

They know what the Japanese, the Americans and the European great powers did to

them, so they want to be very, very powerful, and for good reason. And they’re going to

want to push the United States out of the — East Asia. They’d be crazy not to. As my

mother taught me when I was a little boy, what’s good for the goose is good for the

gander. If we can have a Monroe Doctrine, why do you think they’re not going to have a

Monroe Doctrine? So China’s going to try to dominate Asia. Then the question

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becomes, what do you think the United States is going to do? The historical record is

very clear here. We don’t tolerate peer competitors. We’re not going to let them

dominate Asia if we can prevent it. In effect, this is what the pivot to Asia is all

about. We see them rising, and we want to maintain our dominant position in Asia.

The end result of this is the Chinese are going to push in one direction, and we’re going

to push in the other direction, and it is going to be an intense security

competition. Again, this is not to say we’re going to have a war. But the Chinese are

going to do this not because they have a voracious appetite for tromping on people or if

they have a particular aggressive gene.

It’s because the best way to survive in the international system is to be a regional

hegemon. They understand that, and at the same time we’re not going to let it happen.

John Donvan:

Thank you, John Mearsheimer.

[applause]

John Donvan:

Our motion is “China and the U.S. are long-term enemies.” And here to make his

opening statement against the motion, Robert Daly. He is director of the Kissinger

Institute on China and the United States and a former cultural exchanges officer at the

U.S. embassy in Beijing. Ladies and gentlemen, Robert Daly.

[applause]

Robert Daly:

Well, thanks to all of you for coming out tonight. Remember that our motion is that the

United States and China are long-term enemies, are now and will remain enemies. The

motion is not that the United States and China may become enemies in the future. Bear

the wording of the motion in mind. It’s very important. Our opponents’ position is that

the United States and China are now and have no real option except to continue to

remain enemies.

Why? Because a social science theory says that nations base their strategies on a

survivalist ethic. Even though the question the United States and China face is not how

to survive, but how to flourish. We’re reduced to our basest instincts. The dire

outcome that our opponents are forecasting tonight is avoidable for reasons that Kevin

and I are going to spell out. And it’s also avoidable because the Chinese read

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Mearsheimer, ardently. They’ve read this theory. An even though he tells them that

seeking hegemony in the Eastern hemisphere is a good idea, that there are sound

strategic reasons, he goes on to describe a world that would ensue that no one in China

or the United States would desire.

In fact, he just admitted that when someone does what he tells China to do, the United

States throws you on the scrapheap of history. This is a world we can avoid if we

manage the relationship wisely. I am going to demonstrate that for the past 37 years,

despite our disparate values, despite crises, despite a relationship that is already highly

competitive, the U.S. and China have avoided enmity and have benefited from

engagement. We are not enemies now. Our opponents don’t even claim that we are, in

contradiction to the motion. I will show you also that the world — what the world would

look like in our own opponents’ scheme if we were to become enemies, in hopes of

convincing you that we should expend every effort to avoid that outcome. Kevin will

then challenge the predictive reliability of the social science model in question, and he

will demonstrate that despite serious threats to the relationship, the United States and

China have the motive and the means to contain our competition within peaceful

boundaries.

Enemies, talking about enemies tonight. Fundamentally hostile powers who wish each

other ill. For enemies, the prospect of war is always in the foreground of a relationship,

although not all enemies fight. I want to emphasize from the beginning that the threat

of enmity between the United States and China is real and it is not yet clear that we are

going to have the wisdom to avoid this outcome. Our opponents have done a

wonderful job of putting — of raising this alarm in very stark terms. But we do have to

note that we are not enemies now, despite our current concerns. The U.S. is not

containing China’s rise. In fact, we have promoted that rise. We have aided and

abetted it. The record of engagement with China is lopsided. China benefits more than

we do, but we benefit as well.

Trade. China is our third largest export market after Canada and Mexico. The China

market is essential to the work of American corporations and the Americans they hire;

Apple, G.M., Qualcomm, Intel, IBM, Proctor & Gamble, Coca-Cola, Johnson &

Johnson. Furthermore, the import of cheap goods from China was one of the key

factors that helped low-income Americans to weather the storms of the 2008 financial

crisis.

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China now invests in the United States. Cumulative foreign direct investment 54 billion,

which puts 80,000 Americans to work. 7.3 million Chinese tourists will have visited here

by 2021, bringing 85 billion annually. We benefit from trade. We also benefit from

Chinese talent. Over 2 million Chinese students have studied here since the opening in

1979. And many of them have remained to contribute to our society. Over two million

Chinese immigrants now live in the United States. It is the third largest foreign born

group after Mexicans and Indians. And they contribute greatly to every aspect of the

society. Ten Chinese-Americans have won Nobel Prizes as United States citizens – I’m

sorry, 10 Chinese immigrants. Five of them were born in China. There’s a friend of mine

at the Heritage Foundation, Mr. Brookes’s organization, a couple of years ago who said,

“United States-China relations are not just political, economic, and military, they are

now personal.”

The Chinese have become our friends, neighbors, colleagues, co-parishioners. It may

seem like a cheap move to bring the personal element into this debate about

international affairs, but it’s actually an essential point. There is scant mention of

individual wellbeing in John’s theory. Nation states are the fundamental players in his

anarchic world. But it is individual human beings that are imperiled by this contest for

dominance.

What does enmity look like? What would it be like to have China as an enemy? John

Mearsheimer himself provides the answer in the final chapter of “The Tragedy of Great

Power Politics.” He says that even if we avoid full-scale war, which would be

Armageddon, we will face crises, major disputes that threaten war; an arms race, which

I don’t think we can afford; proxy wars, in which third country citizens will die for our

purported benefit; bait and bleed strategies to lure the other country into costly foolish

wars; bloodletting strategies to prolong those conflicts. The U.S. will begin barring

Chinese students from its universities and we’ll cut down travel restrictions.

That’s just a partial list. Enmity would also involve a betrayal of America’s professed

values. Why? As John Mearsheimer says, the United States’ interests would be best

served by slowing Chinese growth rather than accelerating it. He advocates that we

harm — deliberately harm the welfare of one fifth of humankind to maintain our

position as the hegemon. Our opponents say that we are now and will remain long term

enemies because of a theory and because of Chinese intentions and capabilities which

dictate that it must be so. This is their idea. We should answer them — we must answer

them as Ebenezer Scrooge answered the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come in his

dementor’s cloak, pointing a bony finger at a grave. Scrooge said, “Are these the

shadows of things that will be or are they the shadows of things that may be

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only? Men’s courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which if persevered in they must

lead. But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus.”

The message that Kevin and I bring tonight is that it can be thus and it must be. That is

why you must vote against the motion tonight, again, that the United States and China

are now and are going to remain long-term enemies. Our opponents are correct about

the gravity of the challenge. That’s why we’re having this debate here tonight. But we

do have choices about how we meet and manage those challenges, choices that Kevin

will soon elucidate for you. Thank you.

[applause]

John Donvan:

Thank you, Robert Daly. And a reminder of what’s going on, we are halfway through the

opening round of this Intelligence Squared U.S. Debate. I’m John Donvan. We have four

debaters, two teams of two, arguing over this motion, “China and the U.S. Are Longterm

Enemies.” You’ve heard the first two opening statements, and now on to the

third. Debating in support of the motion, “China and the U.S. Are Long-term Enemies,”

Peter Brookes. He is senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Davis Institute for

National Security and Foreign Policy and former deputy secretary of Defense. Ladies

and gentlemen, Peter Brookes.

Peter Brookes:

Thank you.

[applause]

My colleague, John, did a great job of developing a framework about how great powers

act, and unfortunately it’s not a happy story. I’m — my job here tonight is going to give —

in the first opening, my opening statement is to give some texture and context to what –

– the paradigm that — as — that paradigm that John set up as it relates to China and the

United States. In my opinion, China and the United States are strategic competitors,

they’re strategic rivals, and they’re even enemies. The rhetoric itself bears this out. If

you listen to the Chinese, they say that the United States is trying to “encircle” or

“contain” China, the U.S. is an “hegemon,” a dominant power, which has a very strong

negative connotation, “the U.S. wants to prevent China’s rise –” this is coming out of

Beijing — “the U.S. feels –” and you see this in commentators here in the United States —

“that China is trying to push the United States out of Asia, that China wants to replace

the United States as the preeminent power in the Pacific as the number one world

power.

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Both sides agree that there’s a very high level of strategic distrust between the United

States and China. It gets worse. The United States and China share important interests

in several global hotspots or flashpoints. The oldest, of course, is Taiwan, not getting a

lot of press lately, things have been quiet, but China says it’s part of the People’s

Republic of China. The United States says don’t try to change the status quo by

force. China refuses to renounce the use of force, and the world — the U.S. would

probably resist China trying to unify Taiwan with China using force. This is unlikely to be

resolved any time soon. It’s been ongoing since 1949, and it’s certainly going to remain

a point of tension between the United States and China. Another old one is the Korean

Peninsula. Most people don’t think about this.

China and the United States fought there during the Korean War. China backs North

Korea, its ally. The U.S. backs South Korea, its ally. War on the Korean Peninsula, in my

estimation, is possible at any time. If you talk to U.S. forces Korea their motto is ready

to fight tonight, and that’s a possibility, especially when you’re dealing with the

leadership up there in North Korea. And if there is a fight there, it would likely involve

the United States and China. The most recent flashpoints are the East China Sea and the

South China Sea. Let me start with the East China Sea.

The PRC, the People’s Republic of China, has a territorial dispute in the East China Sea

with American ally, Japan. The U.S. says that these islands, known in Japan as Senkaku,

known in China as the Diaoyu, or the Diaoyutai, are under “Japan’s administration,”

quote unquote, and that they fall under the U.S. Japan defense treaty. That means that

the United States could intervene if China decides to aggress against these Japanese

islands.

To make this issue tenser, China has declared an air defense identification zone, an

ADIZ, over the East China Sea that includes these islands. And right afterwards, the

United States after China declared this ADIZ, the United States sent two B-52 bombers

through this ADIZ to — as a symbol of strength that — and to make a point to China

about their declaration. In the South China Sea, China now claims 80 percent of that

body of water. They say it’s Chinese sovereign territory. By Beijing’s measure, the

South China Sea is essentially a Chinese lake. Chinese says that the sovereignty over

that body of water and the islands in it are indisputable. To ensure this, they’re building

islands on coral reefs and rocky outcrops. On those islands they’re also building ports

and air fields. Of particular interest is that on one of the islands the runway is 3,000

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meters long. That’s about 10,000 feet. Longer than any commercial aircraft would need

for landing, but it will host any of China’s military aircraft.

The Pacific commander recently said that some of these air fields have revetments that

are meant to house or hangar tactical fighters. The U.S. is concerned, to say the

least. Seeding sovereignty rights to China could give Beijing the green light to control

freedom of the seas and air in the South China Sea. Through the South China Sea flows

1.5 — or I’m sorry, $5 trillion worth of commerce. Thirty percent of the world’s seaborne

commerce flows through the South China Sea, $1.2 trillion of that is American. Eighty

percent of Japan’s, South Korea’s, and Taiwan’s, both either allies or partners of the

United States, 80 percent of their imported energy goes through the South China

Sea. Some islands in territory that China claims belong to U.S. allies, such as the

Philippines. In the coming weeks, the Pentagon has announced that they will sail

American war ships through the disputed waters around these new islands.

China isn’t happy about that at all. While conflict over any or all of these scenarios is

inevitable, both sides are bracing themselves for confrontation, crisis, and possibly

conflict. Scholars on both sides of the Pacific are talking and writing about the what-if

questions if crisis comes between the U.S. and China. Indeed neither side is beating

their swords into plowshares. They’re making new and better swords. China has an

anti-access aerial denial strategy — this is what the Pentagon calls it — to deter, delay, or

deny U.S. intervention in the western Pacific. The U.S. has the air/sea battle, a strategy

to defeat the anti-access aerial denial strategy, although the United States that is — says

that isn’t directed at any one country. China’s involved in a massive military

modernization program, double digit increases in its defense budget over the last 25

years. Emphasis on power projection. They’re building aircraft carriers.

They’ve — they’re sending their nuclear deterrent to sea in fleet ballistic missile

submarines. They’re building stealth fighters. They’re exercising significant cyber

warfare capabilities, including against the United States, and preparing to fight in

space. The U.S. is countering with a Pacific rebalance. Sixty percent of American ships

are going to the Pacific. The U.S. Army is growing its presence. Top U.S. weapons

technology is being sent to the Pacific theater first. That includes F-22s, littoral combat

ships, the J-35 strike fighter. None of this sounds very friendly, isn’t it? That’s because it

isn’t. It’s clear that China and the United States are competitors, rivals, indeed

enemies. This isn’t going to change any time soon. It’s a regrettable fact. I strongly

recommend that you vote for this motion. Thank you very much.

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John Donvan:

Thank you, Peter Brookes. And that motion is “China and the U.S. are long-term

enemies.” Our final debater against the motion, Kevin Rudd. He is the inaugural

president of the Asia Society Policy Institute and former prime minister of

Australia. Ladies and gentlemen, Kevin Rudd.

[applause]

Kevin Rudd:

The proposition we’re looking at tonight’s a serious one. It’s no ordinary

proposition. Think about it. The proposition we’re being asked to consider is that China

and the United States are long-term enemies. Weigh those words carefully. These are

important words. “Long-term enemies,” that they cannot escape from this condition of

enmity. This is extreme language. Using the term “enemy” in international relations is

something we rarely do, but not in this proposition. It’s a term we should use with

extreme caution. Think of the definition of what an enemy is. A country you are

fighting a war against, the soldiers, et cetera of that country.

Let us not gloss over the gravity of the language which is being employed in this

proposition. It’s not just words. It means something much more fundamental. What

we intend to do tonight is to defeat this proposition on three grounds. One it is

theoretically dubious; two, practically, as Robert has just demonstrated, it does not

reflect the current reality, in all of its dimensions and in all of its complexity of the

current U.S.-China relationship; and three, it is dangerously determinist in the sense that

it says to us all, we can’t do anything about it. It’s written in the skies. And that

effectively is what John’s theory of offensive realism says.

John said before you needed a theory to explain what is going on because we can’t

predict the future. But then occurs the first fundamental logical step in his

argument. That fundamental, logical step is as follows: He says that we should take,

therefore, at face value, the proposition that a theory of international relations can be

reliably predictive. Where is that mysteriously established? Is it written in the

stars? No, it’s not. It is simply an assertion. And in fact, if you look at the whole body of

literature on international relations, there are as many people arguing against the

proposition that you can be predictive about anything in the social sciences, let alone in

politics, let alone in international relations, let alone a theory which says the United

States and China are going to be and are now enemies. There is something that the

scholars would describe, too, as overcoming physics envy. What do they mean by

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that? That there’s the hard sciences out there, the biological sciences, the physical

sciences. They have predictive laws. We can use that method. And the social sciences

devise the same sort of principles which can therefore predict human behavior.

Well, pigs might fly. There is a huge body of counterevidence to that. But for this to be

the foundational proposition of John’s argument, that because he has a theory called

offensive realism, international relations, it is, by definition, predictive of where the

United States and China are and will be is of itself logically flawed. The second logical

flaw in the argument is as follows: He said before that it is clear to us all that we cannot

predict the future intentions of states. I think I’ve got that right, John. We cannot

predict the future intentions of states. I then listened carefully to John list four separate

predictions about China’s attitude. China will want to demonstrate and demonstrate

through its behavior its domination of East Asia, just like the U.S. did. That’s a

statement of intention. You then go on to say that they’ll want to push the United

States out of Asia.

That’s a statement of your conclusions about Chinese intentions. You have said they

want to be original hegemon. That’s a statement of Chinese intentions, and that we,

the United States, won’t want them to do that. That’s a statement of American

intentions. You cannot have your cake and eat it too, and say, we cannot predict a

state’s intentions and list four areas in which you are making those precise

predictions. It’s not just logically inconsistent, it’s dangerous, because by being so

predictive, it infers that conflict and war are somehow inevitable. That is not our

proposition, not our proposition at all. I also have a theoretical premise. Some would

say it’s Marxist. Listen to this. Politics, international politics, is the art of looking for

trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong — the

wrong remedies, so says Groucho Marx.

[laughter]

When we look at the proposition which is before us, it is theoretically flawed. And as

my colleague Robert has demonstrated, it doesn’t bear any relationship to the complex

reality which is unfolding in U.S.-China relations, across politics, across commerce, and

across people-to-people engagement. But what I’m fundamentally concerned about is

additional argument against this proposition, it is dangerously determinist. It says that

we, through diplomacy or political leadership cannot affect an action. It is basically

saying that international relations, we’ve now got the application of Calvinist

predestination. It’s all out there and we can’t stop it. That’s what offensive realism has

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as its core proposition. It’s a bit like saying that Nixon and Mao had nothing to do

through their individual diplomatic activity in changing the course of the future of U.S.-

China relations. Well, they did through leadership. It’s arguing that Deng Xiaoping had

no impact possibly individually on China’s economic future, that that was somehow

automatically written in the stars. That’s wrong.

Individual political leaders do make a difference. And so it goes on with others who

have contributed to the U.S.-China relationship. The point is this: There is nothing

determinist about international relations. We decide on our futures between countries

just as we decide upon our futures between ourselves. It is a matter of what the

theorist would describe as human agency. We get to make the choice. And through our

political leaders, we can choose to make a choice. An alternative approach is what I call

constructive realism; not offensive realism, but constructive realism. Recognize the

realist differences which exist between America and — and China; recognize that there

are fundamental differences in the East China Sea, the South China Sea, over Taiwan, on

cyber, in space, on human rights, but at the same time recognize that there are multiple

domains of constructive engagement. How do you deal conjointly with the problem of

North Korean nuclear proliferation? How do you deal now conjointly with the problems

of terrorism in Central Asia which afflicts China as much as anybody else?

How do we grow the global economy through our combined growth strategies? These

are areas of constructive engagement which can build political capital over time and

help us deal with the fundamental problems of the future in this relationship as well.

John Donvan:

Thank you, Kevin Rudd.

[applause]

John Donvan:

And that concludes round one of this Intelligence Squared U.S. debate, where our

motion is “China and the U.S. are long-term enemies.” Please keep in mind how you

voted again at the beginning of the arguments, because we’re going to have you vote a

second time. And again to remind you that the way that we determine victory is the

difference between the first and the second vote. It’s the change between the two

votes. Now we move on to round two. Round two is where the debaters address one

another directly and take questions from me and you, our live audience here in New

York City. Our motion is this: China and the U.S. are long-term enemies.

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We have two debaters for this motion, John Mearsheimer and Peter Brookes. We’ve

heard them argue that while they are not predicting war, they are in a sense predicting

something similar to Cold War, where hostility will rule between the two nations, where

there is destined to be competition in terms of arms race, proxy wars, security

crises. They say that a rising China inevitably will want to dominate its region which

puts it in conflict, serious conflict, with the United States, and that at present, China’s

own rhetoric seems to prefigure this, a rhetoric of fighting words and an action in terms

of local activities in its region where China is already attempting to expand its borders

and seize territory of allies which will draw the United States into an even more hostile

relationship. The team arguing against the motion, Kevin Rudd and Robert Daly are

saying, yes, potentially all of that might happen, but it’s not inevitable.

It does not have to happen. This dire outcome is avoidable and can be managed

wisely. They say the term “enemy” is a word that must be used with extreme caution,

and that there are very many venues in which the United States and China can work out

their differences, which are real. But once again, they say that what their opponents are

talking about is far, far from inevitable. I want to go to the team that’s arguing for the

motion, and particularly to John Mearsheimer because you put forward what’s turned

into the theory that for the last few minutes we’ve heard much critique of, and it’s the

theory that there’s an inevitability at present to — the sense of a conflict between the

U.S. and China because of China’s growing influence, power, and natural aspirations. I

don’t want to spend the evening dissecting your theory, but we’re going to pass through

that territory now. Your opponents are saying that you’re contradicting yourself by

saying on the one hand, “We can’t really know the intentions of China,” and, on the

other hand, that you are citing the intentions of China, interesting attack on your

position. I’d like to know what your response is to it.

John Mearsheimer:

Yes, my three points about the structure of the system, the third point was that you

cannot know intentions. That was a starting assumption. And what I did was I took all

three of the assumptions and then you mix them together. And what that does is cause

states to pursue hegemony and to prevent a peer competitor. So there’s no question

that once you mix all of the assumptions together, right, the uncertainty of that

intentions, you do get certainty about intentions in that states do pursue hegemony.

John Donvan:

Okay, so I see the logic of that, and I want to see if your opponents do as well. Let’s take

that — Kevin Rudd.

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Kevin Rudd:

I certainly don’t.

You cannot on the one hand provide a theory which seeks to be descriptive of a current

reality normative about what that future reality might be and at the same time suggest

that you’re not providing a description of predictive intent on the part of the other

country and then walk away from describing the fact that, that is their predictive intent.

John Donvan:

But, Kevin, I think —

Kevin Rudd:

It is either determinist, which it is, of the level of determinism, which Georg Friedrich

Hegel would be embarrassed, or it leaves an option for diplomacy and what we call

“human agency.” And if I’ve read John’s theories carefully about offensive realism, it

provides little if any opportunity for human agency to say, “Let’s negotiate our way

through.”

John Mearsheimer:

I don’t —

John Donvan:

John Mearsheimer, yeah.

John Mearsheimer:

— I think the theory is deterministic. I think that’s a legitimate criticism. I think my

response to John’s question about intentions clears that up. I don’t think the intentions

issue is a real issue. But the point about determinism is correct. John is — I mean, Kevin

is saying there’s hardly any agency in my story, individuals don’t matter, there’s no

possibility for managing this so it ends happily. He’s correct in that regard.

John Donvan:

For the high school senior out there listening to our podcast, five-syllable word,

“deterministic,” I think it would be useful, for me personally —

[laughter]

— I’d like to take this burden upon myself —

[laughter]

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— to just give us a definition of “deterministic” so that we all know exactly what we

mean by that. And, Robert Daly, why don’t you take that.

Robert Daly:

It means that it is bound to happen.

John Donvan:

It’s inevitable.

Robert Daly:

It’s inevitable. There’s no agency. You have no choice. Tomorrow morning the sun will

rise in the east. That’s determined.

John Donvan:

All right.

John Mearsheimer:

That’s correct.

Robert Daly:

And I was just saying —

Kevin Rudd:

The morning after, there’ll be war.

[laughter]

John Mearsheimer:

Show me a — but this just illustrates my point — show me a country that had the raw

capability to dominate its region of the world and passed that up, not a single

case. Show me a case where the United States was up against a potential peer

competitor and decided to sit it out, not a single case.

John Donvan:

Robert Daly.

Robert Daly:

Yes, I would think that China will have the capability. I actually agree with our

opponents about China’s ideal state of affairs, that China would, of course, very much

like to be the hegemon of East Asia. The question is not what China wants. The

question in international relations is what China will settle for, just as the question is

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what we will settle for. China is constrained. It can’t have everything that it wants in its

fondest dreams, and it knows it. Why? It faces tremendous domestic pressures,

problems of political legitimacy and stability, the challenge of continued economic

development — you all know that the Chinese economy is slowing, we are feeling it here

in our stock market — problems of polluted, not only air and water, but land which takes

longer to abate, a water shortage in the north, income disparity, no — very poor social

safety net. It goes on and on. Their primary objective is to maintain stability and to

maintain the party’s monopoly on political power.

That constrains them internationally. China has no allies to speak of. It has no soft

power. It is also unlike the United States when we formed the Monroe Doctrine,

surrounded by very strong countries. The combined population, economic power, GDP,

and military budgets of China’s neighbors are greater than that of China itself, and that’s

before you even add the United States into the formula. And the United States is by far

the strongest military power in —

John Donvan:

All right, let’s let’s let your opponent break in, Peter.

Peter Brookes:

Yeah, I mean, I think what Robert is talking about is interesting, but I mean, I think the

only thing I really remember from their lectures was Sesame Street, Christmas Carol,

and Groucho Marx, in terms of the question here.

[laughter]

John Donvan:

They have much to teach you.

Peter Brookes:

Right. Exactly. A lot of fiction in there and it continues. The issue here is that — and

they’re playing — their parsing on the word enemy, and if you look up the word enemy

in the dictionary what you actually —

Kevin Rudd:

That is a fiction.

John Donvan:

What’s that?

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Kevin Rudd:

The biggest fiction is that deterrence theory says there’s not an alternative. That is the

biggest fiction which we are —

John Donvan:

You’ve made that point and I give the floor back to Peter.

Peter Brookes:

What I think they’re overlooking, what Robert is overlooking certainly is that — is

aspiration and ambitions not capabilities. Aspirations and ambitions. And if China has

these aspirations and ambitions, there’s going to be a rivalrous relationship. There’s

going to tensions. There — so the issue here is not can China do this. I think they’re

making, as I pointed out in my lecture, all of the stubborn facts about China’s rise and

their military modernization. But the fact of the matter is is that enemy does not

necessarily mean war. Look it up in the dictionary. It only means someone who

opposes something or someone. And we have — we already have that. We have that

situation with China today. So it’s about ambitions and aspirations.

Robert Daly:

I looked enemy up in several dictionaries. It is not the same thing as an opponent nor is

it the same thing as a nation that is ambitious.

Male Speaker:

We’re under [unintelligible]

Male Speaker:

Enemy is an opponent or a rival.

Kevin Rudd:

The Oxford dictionary says a country you are fighting a war against, the soldiers, et

cetera, of that country, and we’re debating under Oxford rules, I was told.

[laughter]

Peter Brookes:

In an American — wait a minute — in the American dictionary it doesn’t say that. Look at

Merrian-Webster’s.

[laughter]

John Donvan:

Well, I — wait, wait, wait.

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Kevin Rudd:

I’m not an American. I don’t know why we’re debating under Oxford rules, but —

John Donvan:

But you’re — I want to say to the side arguing against the motion that your opponents

who are arguing that the U.S. and China are long-term enemies made an analogy with

the Cold War in which the — Russia and the United States never actually fought a war,

but that this — but that it takes place at the margins through proxy wars, arms races, et

cetera. So I think it’s fair for them to be making that argument that that constitutes

enmity, as well as all-out war.

Robert Daly:

There is a rivalrous aspect to the relationship. It is growing. It is dangerous and we have

to work to counter it, but there is also a cooperative aspect to the relationship, whether

it’s climate change or fighting Ebola together or in peace-keeping missions. The United

States gives more money to U.N. peace-keeping missions than any other country. China

sends more people. We work together very closely in a way that we never did with the

Soviet Union when we were containing it. We weren’t educating the best and brightest

Soviet minds. So it’s not containment. There is a rivalrous aspect, but there’s

something else, too. The question is how do we balance them and try to keep a thumb

on the cooperative side.

John Donvan:

John Mearsheimer.

John Mearsheimer:

Yeah, I want to respond to Robert’s point. He’s correct that when you look at economic

intercourse it’s not a rivalry. It’s at the security level that there’s a rivalry, and that’s

why it’s not good to compare it to the Cold War as he pointed out, but what you want to

compare it to is the pre-World War I period, because there was a tremendous amount

of economic intercourse in Europe before World War I, but this was also an intense

security competition, which centered around Germany.

And the question is in the end was it that security competition or that economic

intercourse that was peaceful that trumped the other, and the answer is it was the

security competition that won. And I think the argument that Peter and I are making is

that the security competition will eventually overwhelm the economic cooperation

correctly described.

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John Donvan:

Is there a reason, Kevin Rudd, for why it’s different with China? Why that doesn’t have

to be inevitable with China?

Kevin Rudd:

To flip out of a question which John has asked, but we haven’t answered, and I’ll come

back to the one you just put before, which is that he said point to a period in history

where he’s determinist theory hasn’t applied. Look at the period after World War

II. Britain, France, Germany. They’d been at it for how many decades? How many

centuries trying to wipe each other off the planet? Well, they decided finally, finally

after 1945 that it was timeout, and frankly diplomacy prevailed and eventually they

formed something imperfect called the European Union, but guess what?

The historically determinist narrative about Anglo French relations, about FrancoGerman

relations was finally resolved through the construction of diplomacy. A

European Union was built. You may criticize its economic performance, but at least

there hasn’t been a war in Europe for 70 years. That’s diplomatic intervention. In the

case of China and the question of supremacy of economics over politics, all I would say

is that there is a huge amount of positive economic engagement between the two

countries, a whole lot of friction as well, but the totality of the relationship has got as

much difficulty on the security side as there is engagement in the other dimensions as

well, and now common security exercises as well behind the scenes. How do the two

countries now deal with the problem of North Korean nuclear proliferation?

John Donvan:

Let’s bring that point to Peter Brookes. What your opponent just laid out were several

ways in which there are — there are avenues for cooperation that could —

Peter Brookes:

Such as the Trans-Pacific partnership that doesn’t include China? I mean, I don’t see any

economic cooperation there. I mean, we are rivalrous with China on so many levels,

whether you’re talking about diplomatically, whether you’re talking about — whether

you’re talking about human rights, whether you’re talking about economics. The United

States just completed a trade pact in the Pacific that does not include China. How do

you account for that? If you talk about human agency — and I don’t think anybody is

looking for a fight.

Kevin Rudd:

But hang on.

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Peter Brookes:

But the fact of the matter is —

Kevin Rudd:

John’s theory is [unintelligible]. We — it doesn’t matter whether you want to or whether

you don’t want to. According to his approach, which he says he shares with realists in

China, a fight under those terms is inevitable. I have a different approach because

diplomacy can choose other ways through. Kissinger did that in the early ’70s. We can

choose to do that again in the future.

On the TPP you just referred to, and it’s a good example, what I note is once the TPP is

passed, at least in terms of negotiations, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, what you now

find is that China’s public language is changed from one of outright hostility to one of

saying, “I wonder how in fact we can now get into this.” In the last three to six months,

their public language has changed.

Robert Daly:

That’s a very good example of the fact that we cannot determine, but we can shape

China’s decisions by our own actions and our own policies.

John Donvan:

We are focusing very much on shaping China’s decisions so far, and on China’s actions,

China’s motives, whether we can know them or not. I want to take to the side arguing

for the motion, United States’ action, motives and intentions and ask you whether there

is a responsibility on the United States side, in your view, for aggravating this

situation. And if so, is there something that the United — does the United States need to

retreat from its ambitions in order to stem off the sort of situation you’re talking

about? Or is that inevitably impossible? Peter Brookes.

Peter Brookes:

I would — I would say that countries try to protect and advance their interests. The

United States is a Pacific nation. We have more trade with the Pacific than we do with

Europe today. We have significant — we have allies out there. We have five sets of

allies — in the Pacific theater. We have defense and security commitments. As I

mentioned, $1.2 trillion in trade goes through the South China Sea. So I think the United

States is trying to protect its interests, meet its obligations. Of course, putting into play

human agency, the United States could move away from those commitments. It could

move away from securing its interests. It could move away from trying to advance the

interests of the American people in the Pacific. It could cede the prominent position to

the Chinese. That is certainly a choice. But I don’t believe that nations operate in that

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manner. I believe that, just like the Chinese, they are trying to advance and protect

their interests, and the United States is doing the same thing. And the problem is that

the United States and China are not in alignment on their interests. This happens. And

that’s where this competition and rivalry comes from.

John Donvan:

Robert Daly.

Robert Daly:

I would like to ask what the United States should do. I just met Professor Mearsheimer

back stage, seemed like a very nice guy. But you have advocated the United States, in

defense of its interests and to protect its current status, actively seek to harm the

economy of China, a place that has brought hundreds of millions of people out of

absolute poverty. You advocate for dropping some of them back into poverty. This

would hurt their medical system, their educational system. Is this what we want to do

and be? Are these sorts of methods that we have to use that we are predetermined to

use?

John Mearsheimer:

Let me ask you a question.

John Donvan:

Wait, he just asked you a question.

[laughter]

John Mearsheimer:

No, but it’s —

Peter Brookes:

The best way to respond is with a question, right?

John Mearsheimer:

It’s a rhetorical question. If you were in Britain in 1900, and you had been watching

Germany rise since 1870, and you were really nervous about Germany, right, and you

could see a security competition coming, would you — and you could have hit a switch

that would have slowed down German economic growth significantly, would you have

hit that switch, given what you now know?

Robert Daly:

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This is not an academic exercise.

John Mearsheimer:

No —

Robert Daly:

I don’t pretend to know as much about Germany and Britain in those years. I know a

great deal about–

John Mearsheimer:

Well, you know —

Robert Daly:

— China and the United States.

John Mearsheimer:

— did you know there was World War I and then there was World War II?

Robert Daly:

Real people —

[talking simultaneously, unintelligible]

John Donvan:

All right, all right, all right. [unintelligible]

[talking simultaneously]

John Donvan:

We’re going to stop this a second and — and John Mearsheimer, I still want to hear your

answer to his question.

John Mearsheimer:

Which is the question?

John Donvan:

You don’t remember his question?

[laughter]

John Mearsheimer:

No.

John Donvan:

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His question is, what would you do — and he says that you are talking about actually

harming — harming the other side.

John Mearsheimer:

No. If I was in a position to slow down Chinese economic growth, I would definitely do

it. China is going to be a potential peer competitor. And we’re going to have an intense

security competition. And you go to countries like Japan, you go to countries like the

Philippines, Vietnam, they see this one coming.

And people there, if they could have a switch that would slow down the Chinese

economy, they’d do it as well because they know what’s going to happen when China

becomes really powerful. And remember, we’re talk about a China that’s much more

powerful in 20 or 30 years than it is now; has a lot more weight to throw around. The

Chinese have made it very clear that they’re going to throw that weight around. They

think they own the South China Sea. They want Taiwan back. They want the Senkaku

Diaoyu Islands back. This is not a status quo power.

Male Speaker:

Of course, you know, the –

John Donvan:

Let me let your opponents respond. Kevin Rudd.

Kevin Rudd:

On the minds of every chancellor in the world today is this: What will happen in Chinese

economic growth stalls? That’s the question today, because it actually sucks out what

little growth there is in the global economy today. It sucks out the job opportunities

which were emerging in Africa and Latin America and other parts of the world. And as a

consequence, the damage to American jobs is a consequence of global growth going

down and global demand for U.S. goods and services goes down as well.

That is the most self-defeating argument I’ve seen. Your point about what alternative

options exist other than seeking to economically strangle a country is as follows: In the

period leading up to the first world war, if you read, I think, the seminal text called

“Sleep Walking to War,” published in 2013-14, it points to a [unintelligible] failure of

diplomacy between Berlin, Paris and Vienna and London in the critical months of July of

1914, where diplomacy could have averted conflict. That is the conclusion of the most

seminal and recent study of the events leading up to the First World War, the idea that

Britain could have even conceived of strangling the German economy in 1900 was

simply not on the table and would have been injurious to general growth in Europe then

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in a way in which such an action towards China today by the United States or anyone

else would be injurious to the entire world’s work force.

John Donvan:

All right. I want to let Peter Brookes respond to that. But before he starts to speak, I

want to say, after he answers and makes his point, I’m going to go to you for

questions. Just to remind you of how it works. Raise your hand, I’ll call on you. Please

stand up, tell us your name and then ask a question. Please, I really don’t want you to

make a speech before you ask the question, but I’m fine with you, you know, stating a

premise, but then really get to the question and really nail it. And if you can’t do it, I will

have to move on to somebody else. But go ahead, Peter Brookes.

Peter Brookes:

I mean, I — Kevin’s spending a lot of time talking about diplomacy, and I appreciate that,

and obviously, diplomacy can play a very positive role. But I have to say, diplomacy’s

failing. The state visit of Xi Jinping just recently to the United States was a very tense

relationship, very tense meeting. Talking about cyber, the Chinese have pilfered 20 plus

million, personal information, 20 plus million American government employees,

including myself. And the U.S. chamber of commerce will tell you they’re dealing with

the most hostile business climate in China today that they’ve ever faced before.

And, of course, this issue of the South China Sea. So nobody doubts that diplomacy can

have a positive role. But I’m telling you today, based on all the things that I’ve told you,

that diplomacy’s failing.

John Donvan:

Let’s go to some questions. Right down front here. And then I saw you in the back. I’ll

come back to you after that. Thanks.

Ethan Bronner:

I’m Ethan Bronner. My question is for your side. Is there not any change in the

international order the way countries relate to one another since World War II, World

War II came up, that affects this sense of inevitability. Is there not something that says

that countries actually need one another, that we relate to one another in ways that

100 years ago and longer ago people did not know and therefore it didn’t affect their

behavior?

John Donvan:

John Mearsheimer?

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John Mearsheimer:

I think the answer to that is no. And I think if you look at U.S.-Russian relations today,

and you look at U.S.-Chinese relations today, and you look at U.S.-Iranian relations

today, those are three glaring examples that contradict what you say. When we

expanded NATO and the EU eastward, we thought that international politics had

changed, that realpolitik was finished and we could get away with expanding NATO and

the EU, and it would have no consequences. We found out exactly the opposite was the

case, because Putin is a first-class realpolitiker. The same thing applies to East

Asia. There’s all sorts of evidence out there that the Chinese think in realpolitik

terms. And if you look at the competition that’s beginning to brew, it runs against the

argument that international politics has changed. Look at the Middle East today. It’s

hard to believe that all these new theories that were put on the table when the Cold

War ended apply there. So there are just lots of examples where there’s trouble in the

system.

John Donvan:

Let me let the other side answer that question, whether, in fact, the world in some

fashion is different today so that what happened 100 years ago is not destiny today.

Robert Daly:

Well, even within the constraints of John’s determinist theory, there are real-politik

forces that speak against China successfully becoming a hegemon. It will be balanced

against and deterred by the very strong countries on its periphery, sometimes in alliance

with each other and sometimes singly. We also — we already see China’s aggression in

the South China Sea and the East China Sea, causing countries to draw closer to the

United States, inviting the Marines in to northern Australia, letting American ships

rotate through harbors, countries that in the past have been quite close to China. We

see Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia. So even within the system we see balances that are

going to constrain China.

John Donvan:

Let’s go to the question in the back. It’s all the way — second to the last row.

Male Speaker:

Thank you. Hi. My name’s Sean Donahue [spelled phonetically]. And as China

continues their development in their pivot westward into Central Asia with

infrastructure development, do you think that will change the American foreign policy

calculus more in line with China as we see them as an ally in global developments?

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John Donvan:

Kevin Rudd.

Kevin Rudd:

Well, with China there’s always going to be competition, there’s always going to be

cooperation. Both these realities are always confronting us every day of the week. On

this one in terms of China’s investment program through the Asian infrastructure

investment bank and [unintelligible] investment fund and other such financial entities,

the Chinese spot an economic opportunity. They see there’s overcapacity in the

construction industry within their own country. They want to actually be able to export

that and grow the infrastructure of Southern and Central Asia through to the Middle

East at the same time. My argument is there’s a market there.

There’s a huge deficit in infrastructure in that part of the world. Why not U.S.-Chinese

entrepreneurs get together and make a buck together, build infrastructure, and at the

same time improve the livelihoods of those in that part of the world? There are a large

list of cooperative possibilities in finance and in commerce between U.S. and Chinese

firms. And at the same time there’s going to be a whole lot of competition and a whole

lot of aggravation as well. But that is life. It’s never going to be clean. It’s never going

to be neat. But both those things are possible.

Male Speaker:

And if you could –

[talking simultaneously]

Robert Daly:

I think truly and fundamentally [inaudible] will not cooperate.

John Donvan:

I want to bring it to the other side.

Peter Brookes:

I think that Kevin makes our point about the rivalrous — in the competition the rivalrous

relationship between the United States and China. The United States has its own Silk

Road initiative. China’s had their own Silk Road initiative. It’s not with the United

States. He talked about the AIAB, the investment bank — the Asian investment bank,

which challenges the Asian development bank. They’re talking about the BRICs, Brazil,

Russia, Indian, and China, which does not include the United States.

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So I spend a lot of time talking about how the military competition is heating up,

because I think that’s what really people feel comfortable about when they talk about

enemies, but the fact of the matter, once again, is that there’s competition between the

United States diplomatically and economically. And I think Kevin just made that point.

John Donvan:

Another question? Right center there? Mike’s coming from your right-hand side.

Female Speaker:

Thank you. My name is Linda Drumm [spelled phonetically]. And I wanted to ask you

how you think the fact that China owns so much of our debt will affect our relationship

in the future.

John Donvan:

And in terms of the enmity, is that a force for peace of conflict?

Female Speaker:

Yes.

Peter Brookes:

Well –

[laughter]

— right.

John Donvan:

I’m just trying to help you hone to the –

Peter Brookes:

This is a very interesting question. And a lot of people are very uncomfortable with the

fact that China owns so much of our debt. They’re actually selling off some of our debt

at the moment right now. It’s changing.

But the Chinese, because their currency is not convertible, Chinese firms that do

business here in the United States basically have to come back and sell their dollars to

the government to get RMB. Or renminbi. So it’s the way the system works because

the currency isn’t convertible. And then the Chinese have to do something with that

debt, so they can buy Boeing aircraft, they can — you know, they can buy soybeans, or

they can buy U.S. debt. And obviously the U.S. debt is still considered to be the world’s

most stable and probably the best investment for them.

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John Donvan:

I’d like to let the other side respond to that if you’d like to take it.

Robert Daly:

Well, that’s correct.

John Donvan:

Robert Daly.

Robert Daly:

Many Americans think that China owns the majority of our debt. They don’t. They are

the second largest foreign holder of our debt. Japan just surpassed them again. For a

while China was number one. I think they have something like 7.6, 7.4, total American

sovereign debt, so it’s really not that big an issue for the reasons Peter just mentioned,

because the total volumes aren’t that great.

John Donvan:

So does it have a little impact on the debate tonight about whether China and U.S. are –

Peter Brookes:

Well, I think it’s perception. It’s a perception.

I think most Americans are probably pretty unhappy about that. I mean, I think we’re —

our culture says that debt is not necessarily a good thing and coming out of difficult

economic times I think people are probably uncomfortable with that, and having the

Chinese Communist Party hold majority or near majority of American debt is probably

uncomfortable for some people.

John Donvan:

But it’s a little hard to blame China for that.

Robert Daly:

No, I’m not blaming — I’m not blaming China for that, but I think what an interesting

point is, going back to what they criticized John about, I wasn’t sure exactly what they

were referring to in terms of John’s writings, but the fact is, is that the money that China

makes in the United States goes to a lot of things, including their military

modernization. Now I was kind of rushed through my list there, but I want you to make

sure you understand that over the last 25 years, China has had an average of double

digit increases, that means 10 percent or more, in its defense budget. Now it’s not the

same as the United States. Of course, things are cheaper in China, but this shows a

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commitment to increasing their military capabilities, which obviously will brush up

against ours in the Asia Pacific region.

Kevin Rudd:

I think we just did a bit of context in this. The U.S. defense budget presently runs about

$700 billion a year. The Chinese defense budget, based on the external analyses, not

the internal analyses, somewhere in the vicinity of $200, $225 billion at the upper range

calculus, and that’s by the Stockholm Independent Peace Research Institute who take no

sides. So that’s the current relativity. Secondly, the U.S. budget has been — defense

budget, has been massively in excess of China’s for the last 50 years. You have nearly 10

carrier battle groups. They’ve got a crapped out Ukrainian aircraft carrier, which can

barely make it out to sea, let alone back. It doesn’t have a single carrier battle

group. It’s developing a submarine capability, but let me tell you if I was in the betting

race for the next 25 years you line up all the assets in order of battle of the Pacific

command of the United States of America, with which I have some familiarity as an

Australian, and the Chinese order of battle, let me tell you who I’d be backing any day of

the week, and for the next 30 years plus.

John Donvan:

John Mearsheimer.

John Mearsheimer:

Yeah, but that doesn’t contradict Peter’s point. If you go back –

Kevin Rudd:

Oh, I think it goes some way towards it.

[laughter]

John Mearsheimer:

No. If you go back to 1980 and you look at the size and quality of the Chinese military

and you compare it to the size and quality of that military today, there has been a

fundamental change. It’s a much more formidable military, and what we’re talking

about here is what’s going to happen over the next 20, 30, 40 years as China turns into a

giant Taiwan or a giant Hong Kong. It is going to have many more resources to spend on

defense, and it’s going to build a military that’s probably the equal, if not the superior,

of the United States.

Kevin Rudd:

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Well, I think in further response again, there is a thing called demography, John. The

aging the Chinese population, the workforce began shrinking three years ago. It will

start to decrease probably by the time we get to the late 2020s. As a consequence of

that, with the rapid aging of the Chinese population, the pressure on the Chinese budget

for the next 30 years in terms of looking after old people, is going to start to rival that of

the western world.

As they say in China, we’re going to get old before we get rich and powerful. This will be

a huge constraint on military outlays as well.

John Donvan:

Yeah, Peter Brookes.

Peter Brookes:

I mean — Kevin, you know, facts are inconvenient and stubborn things sometimes, but

when you talk about the defense budget –

Kevin Rudd:

[unintelligible]

Peter Brookes:

— well, you talk about the defense budget. The United States is also in war. China’s not

at war. Also, the Chinese — most of the Chinese budget, a lot of the Chinese budget is

not included in these figures.

Kevin Rudd:

That’s why –

[talking simultaneously]

— external –

Peter Brookes:

Right. It’s a lot cheaper to build things in China than the United States, but the fact is by

2020 China will have 300 modern submarines, ships in the Pacific region and the United

States will have 180. As a Soviet general once reminded me, there’s a certain quality in

quantity, so don’t overlook — I’m backing as a Navy commander, I’m backing our sailors,

our airmen, our marines, and our soldiers. But the fact of the matter is you cannot

overlook –

[talking simultaneously]

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Peter Brookes:

The Chinese are also build –

[talking simultaneously]

John Donvan:

Kevin, can I –

Male Speaker:

[unintelligible]

John Donvan:

Kevin, hang on a second. Kevin, hang.

Kevin Rudd:

That’s a gross exaggeration.

John Donvan:

You finish your point.

Peter Brookes:

I’m finished.

John Donvan:

Great.

[laughter]

You talk, Kevin.

Kevin Rudd:

They have 65 at present.

John Donvan:

I want to remind you that we are in the question and answer section of this Intelligence

Squared U.S. debate.

[laughter]

I have to do this without your chuckling. I want to remind you that we are in the

question and answer section of this Intelligence Squared U.S. debate. I’m Jon Donvan,

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your moderator. We have four debaters, two teams of two debating this motion: China

and the U.S. Are Long-Term Enemies. Robert Daly.

Robert Daly:

Quick response to John’s last point about positing the People’s Republic of China as

Taiwan or Hong Kong writ large. China is currently about number 80 in the world in per

capita GDP. To posit the People’s Republic of China as wealthy as Hong Kong or Taiwan

and to plan up against and to fight against that, this is not a prediction made based on a

structural determinist model. This is simply an act of prophecy. There’s no grounds for

it.

John Donvan:

Another question, right on the end there.

Male Speaker:

Don Laurie [spelled phonetically]. Stapleton Roy, a former ambassador to China, asked

the current premier of China, “What are your two biggest problems?” He said, “How do

I feed one and a half billion people every day, and how do I ensure a certain level of

employment?” So my question is, what do the — what should the relative leaders of

these countries be thinking about the issues we’re talking about?

John Donvan:

John Mearsheimer.

John Mearsheimer:

Well, very quickly, my argument is that for purposes of Chinese security, what the

Chinese should think about doing is dominating Asia the same way we dominate the

Western hemisphere. I think they’d be foolish to do otherwise. I know all sorts of

Chinese who agree with that. And in fact Robert has made the point that if the Chinese

could dominate Asia, they would do it. That’s my point.

What should we do? My point is that the United States of America should make sure we

don’t have a peer competitor. I’m glad we fought against imperial Germany, imperial

Japan, Nazi Germany, and we contained the Soviet Union. And if China continues to

rise, I think the United States will continue to pivot to Asia, and we will do everything we

can to check China. And I think that makes perfectly good sense. Is this a tragic

situation? I think the answer is yes. But nevertheless, I think it’s inevitable.

John Donvan:

Robert Daly.

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Robert Daly:

The United States must make sure that we do not have a peer competitor for our

security. Think about what this means. This is a brutalist philosophy. The proposition is

that even if China were to change in some of the ways that proponents of engagement

have been said that we hope it changes, even if they just as a thought experiment,

adapted our Constitution and our laws wholesale, we should still try to limit their

growth merely because we shouldn’t have a peer competitor. That is the proposition.

Regardless of beliefs, regardless of people striving for human flourishing along the lines

that we have been prescribing to the world for decades, if they actually appear to be

succeeding, regardless of their beliefs, we must stop them even if it means pushing

them back toward poverty.

John Donvan:

Robert, I — Robert, I don’t — I don’t mean this question cynically or sarcastically, but

what’s wrong with that?

Robert Daly:

Well, I would sort of throw that out to John –

John Donvan:

You can move in a little bit closer to your mic, please.

Robert Daly:

Sure. I think that we’re better than that. I think that it flies in the face of the values that

we have been preaching to the rest of the world for the past 200 years. We have been

given them a very careful text about how some form of liberal democracy, pluralistic

political institutions, capitalist — capitalism and markets will help them to flourish, that

we can flourish together, that we can share our educational systems, science and

technology and that this is what we are about. John, if I don’t misunderstand you,

you’re saying that that’s just not true. This is liberal hogwash?

John Mearsheimer:

No. The highest value a state can have is survival.

Robert Daly:

That’s the lowest value.

John Mearsheimer:

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No, no.

Robert Daly:

That’s the precondition. This is — I’m talking about flourishing.

John Mearsheimer:

No, I agree with that you it’s a precondition. But the mere fact that it’s precondition for

pursuing all your other interests means that it is, by definition, the most important goal.

Robert Daly:

Here we sit surviving. And they’re surviving in Beijing now. Haven’t we moved beyond

that?

Peter Brookes:

Can I ask something?

John Donvan:

Yeah. Peter Brookes.

Peter Brookes:

I think it’s important for people to realize that we talk about states, but we’re really

talking about people. States are like — there’s a lot of human nature in how states act

because they’re run by people. States, just like people, care about their social

status. People care about their social status. They care where they are in the social

structure. And from states, that’s the international system. And there’s also a belief by

states that the higher you are on that — in that international system the more the

benefits will come to you. And it’s the same for people.

Male Speaker:

I think to us –

Peter Brookes:

A state — this means — this — this means that states, like people, are interested in power

and influence.

John Donvan:

Kevin Rudd.

Kevin Rudd:

Just to add to that point, I think what Robert was saying, and to reemphasize his

analysis, a clear reading of John’s set of realism is that it doesn’t matter whether a state

is a democracy or not, doesn’t matter whether they try to become a democracy or

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not. If any liberal democracy, for example, grows and becomes a strong economic and –

– and significant military power, that — that of itself invites direct concern from the

United States in his theory to do something about it and to stop that from happening. I

think that’s a fair characterization of your position.

John Donvan:

Great. That’s great. Sorry. Yeah. Mic’s coming on your left.

Male Speaker:

Hi, everyone. I have a question. So I heard so far a lot of fighting for powers’ sake. And

you know, by that argument, we should be fighting the EU. My question is, what are

some specific things that you see that we could fight over as the American people, like

something that the American people would actually feel worth fighting over?

John Donvan:

Can — I’m not — do you understand the sense of the question? Because I’m not sure

that I do. If you do, I’ll let you go with it.

John Mearsheimer:

I think, and Peter has done this. You can point to specific issues that the United States

could end up fighting China over, for example, one of those islands in the Spratlys,

maybe over Taiwan, maybe over the islands in the East China Sea, and he pointed to the

Korean peninsula. Your question was whether we could get the American people

exercised enough that they would be willing to fight in those specific situations. And I

think that the United States is so good at thread inflation and fear mongering that we

have no problems with that issue.

[laughter]

John Donvan:

Robert Daly.

[applause]

John Donvan:

Robert Daly [unintelligible].

Male Speaker:

[unintelligible] on the outside of the argument.

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Robert Daly:

I’m less — I’m a little less certain that we could convince Americans to die for

uninhabitable rocks in a part of the — in a part of the world that they can’t find on a

globe.

Peter Brookes:

John, I have something.

John Donvan:

Peter Brookes.

Peter Brookes:

I mean, I — I think, you know, my colleague John has, you know, laid it out quite

well. But, I mean, for instance, look at the South China Sea contingency. If China were

to build these airfields and ports and start sending war ships into their controlling —

controlling the transit through that part of the world, I mean, that’s a threat to our vital

national interests. $1.2 trillion in U.S. trade, the movement of American war ships

through the Persian Gulf. I mean, this is something that could happen. China could

strangle Japan, Taiwan and South Korea, either allies or partners of the United States by

cutting off the flow of oil that comes through the Malacca strait and goes to those

countries, 80 percent of their energy.

So there are very much potential threats besides the Korean peninsula and other things,

potential threats, strong threats to American national interests that could lead to — lead

to war.

John Donvan:

Kevin Rudd, very quickly.

Kevin Rudd:

I think — to agree with Peter, there is a range of things that you can see around the

region where conflict could erupt. You really can. Both of us have watched this

carefully over many, many years. Our argument, and why we differ from our friends

opposite, is as follows: That we believe that there is a way through these challenges,

difficult and as hard and as uneven a course as it may be, which is to be able to

negotiate through strength. No one is arguing that the United States of America should

go to a negotiating table in weakness. That is not the argument of the either the U.S. or

its allies. But as Kennedy once said, JFK, we should never, ever negotiate out of fear,

but we should never fear to negotiate.

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And so all of these intractable problems which seem to be intractable, they may take

years and decades to work their way through. But our argument, our core argument is

that national political leaders and diplomats, backed up with sensible statecraft, can

make a real difference and not yield to what John has confirmed as his ultimate thesis is

a determinist view, which is it’s beyond our control. China’s rising. The U.S. is

here. They’re going to run into each other. Either the U.S. capitulates, China

capitulates, or there’s war. That’s the three-ended result. We have a radically different

view.

John Donvan:

All right. What I’d like to do here is something that we could summarize this round,

that’s a round that we introduced a few debates back that we call the lightning round in

which each debater gets 30 seconds to make or respond to a point with a little bit of

rebuttal built into it. And it’s firmly timed with a bell that comes at the end of the 30

seconds. And I — pardon me? Somebody said something in my — oh, I’m sorry. I meant

to call it the volley round. We’ve been working through a series of names, and

somebody just mysteriously spoke into my ear, in fact the person who’s telling me to say

everything I say tonight, every word in my mouth.

[laughter]

John Donvan:

Think of me as Elmo with a hand in my body.

[laughter]

John Donvan:

We call it the volley round. And at the volley round, each debater gets 30 seconds. It’s

closely timed. They have to stop talking when the bell rings, and then the other side

gets to speak. And I think the question I want to put, sort of summarizes where we are

and the kind of argument that we heard, I’m going to go first to this side. But I think the

proposition kind of boils down to this, that your opponents are saying that self-interest,

economic self-interest, ultimately is going to be a more powerful force than superpower

rivalry and power ambitions, that both China –

Kevin Rudd:

We didn’t say that.

John Donvan:

Pardon me?

Kevin Rudd:

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That’s not our argument.

John Donvan:

Oh, all right. Well, correct me.

Male Speaker:

Maybe it should be.

John Mearsheimer:

No, that was Robert’s first point.

[talking simultaneously]

John Donvan:

All right, well, let’s not say it sums up your argument.

[laughter]

Kevin Rudd:

Thank you. That’s better.

John Donvan:

Let’s say an important point that you made this evening was that –

[laughter]

— let’s say an important point that you made this evening was that there is just too

much economic self-interest for both sides to risk letting things fall apart to the point of

–

Male Speaker:

Yeah.

John Donvan:

— all-out hostility and conflict.

Male Speaker:

Right.

John Donvan:

Which of you would like to respond to that first?

[talking simultaneously]

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John Mearsheimer, your 30 seconds starts now.

John Mearsheimer:

Okay, okay. Well, the economic interdependence argument which John was just laying

out says that prosperity is of enormous importance. The story that I was telling is a

story about security. And in the security story what matters most is survival. So it’s a

tradeoff between survival on one hand and prosperity on the other. And my argument

is that when those two come head-to-head survival wins every time.

[bell rings]

[laughter]

[applause]

John Donvan:

Robert Daly. Robert Daly, your 30 seconds starts now.

Robert Daly:

Remember that the United States and China have successfully managed frictions of this

kind for 37 years. We have a record through diplomacy, through trade, sometimes

through confrontation, through engagement, and through restraint, even after the

Tiananmen massacre of 1989, even after we bombed China’s embassy in Serbia in 1999,

even after their hot dog pilot hit our plane and they took our crew basically hostages

Hainan Island in 2001, we did not become enemies. There’s no need to do it in the

future.

[bell rings]

Peter Brookes.

[applause]

Peter Brookes:

I’m surprised John didn’t take this argument because it turns out that economic

interdependence between countries empirically is a very weak variable and it doesn’t

protect, prevent countries from going to war. World War I is a perfect example. As I

recall, Britain and Germany were each other’s largest trading partners. The United

States was a major trading partner of Japan before World War II. It does not always

prevent people from going to war or for hostilities from breaking out. It’s a weak

variable, and it would be silly to depend on the idea that countries’ nationalism and

other security issues won’t trump economic interdependence.

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[bell rings]

John Donvan:

Kevin Rudd.

[applause]

Kevin Rudd:

Economic interdependence helps, but it is not the final answer to this question. I think

we’re all agreed on that. What is important is to have sufficient commonality of security

interests long term, to have a diplomacy which can secure a path up the middle which

doesn’t go to the binary of capitulation or war. We believe diplomacy is capable of

doing that. And if we look around the world today, what are the Chinese and the

Americans doing? They’re talking about North Korea and nuclear weapons. That’s a big

example of how they can do it, and I believe –

[bell rings]

— the two are not mutually exclusive.

John Donvan:

Kevin Rudd, thank you. And that concludes round two of this Intelligence Squared U.S.

Debate, where our motion is “China and the U.S. Are Long-term Enemies.”

Now we move on to round three. Round three, each of the debaters makes a closing

statement. It will be two minutes each. They will do it seated. Here to summarize his

position for the motion, “China and the U.S. Are Long-term Enemies,” Peter Brookes,

member of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.

Peter Brookes:

Thank you. China often speaks of 100 years of humiliation at the hands of outside

powers, as Kevin mentioned earlier, from the opium wars in the 1840s to the standing

up of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. It’s my sense that China never plans to

experience that again and are making steps to do so. It plans to return China to its

former glory as the middle kingdom. This is what President Xi Jinping has talked about

when he talks about the “China dream.” The major obstacle to achieving that is the

United States. As a result, as evidenced by areas of disagreement and the buildup of

military forces, China and the United States are in an intense struggle for power and

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influence that could lead the two of them to the first great power war in 70 years. It

could happen.

Whether we like it or not, China and the United States are enemies in the category of

U.S.-Iran, U.S.-North Korea, and the New York Giants and the Washington Redskins.

[laughter]

It’s that serious. We’re enemies. We want the same things and that’s to be at the top

of the international system. Until one side gives up its challenge to the status quo or the

other side acquiesces to the challenger’s rise, it’s going to be that way. In my opinion,

that’s not likely to happen. The China that our opponents have talked about is not the

China of the past. It’s a superpower. That means that China and the United States are

long-term enemies and I recommend that you vote for this motion. Thank you very

much.

John Donvan:

Thank you, Peter Brookes.

[applause]

And the motion is China and the U.S. Are Long-Term Enemies, and here to make his

statement against this motion, Robert Daly, director of the Kissinger Institute on China

and the United States at the Wilson Center.

Robert Daly:

John Mearsheimer admits in his writing that social science theory is a crude

instrument. Those are his words. But even if it were a far more precise instrument, it

would still be only one of the tools in a very large toolkit that we have at our disposal, a

toolkit that includes deft creative diplomacy, the balancing of interests, judicious

restraint, economic and political lovers, our moral sense, a due fear of our capacity for

violence, consideration for the opinions and the interests of other nations, and common

concern for transnational threats like climate change and pandemics. All of these

instruments, if we wield them properly, will enable us to manage this relationship such

that we do not become enemies and we are not enemies now.

We are not helpless witnesses to the unfolding of grand historical loss. It’s a dangerous

world, but it’s not a Risk board. There’s more to it than that. There’s far more to

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interactions between nations to civilization than the disposition of forces. We must

build and position our forces wisely, yes, but we must not reduce our collective life to a

brutalist survival imperative. I work at a think tank, sometimes hard to explain to my

kids what I do with this. I’m not a fireman or a policeman and they ask, so I just say well,

I work all day to try to make sure that the United States and China don’t fight, and as I

was getting ready for this debate the other night my second son, Mateo, who was born

in China and grew up there for six years, born to a Chinese mother, said, “Dad if we

fight, who would I fight for, China or America?” And I said, “Well, you’d fight for

America, Bub, but it need not come to that.” It need not come to that. That is our

position. We are not nor are we destined to become enemies and we encourage you to

vote against the motion. Thank you.

[applause]

John Donvan:

Thank you, Robert Daly. And our motion is China and the U.S. Are Long-Term

Enemies. Here to make his closing statement in support of the motion, John

Mearsheimer, the R. Wendell Harrison distinguished service professor of political

science at the University of Chicago.

John Mearsheimer:

Thank you, John. As I said early on, you can’t talk about the future without a theory,

and I think that they have a theory and it revolves around agency or diplomacy. They

believe that the competition can be managed and that’s very different than the way I

think about the issue. But I want to ask you this — when you look at American

diplomacy over the past 20 years, does that give you confidence?

[laughter]

Does that give you confidence that American leaders can manage this relationship –

[laughter]

— over the next 30 or 40 years? You know about Afghanistan. You know about

Iraq. You know about Libya. You know about Ukraine. Seems to me the United States

has the Midas touch in reverse. It’s really quite remarkable.

[laughter]

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And for their theory to work not only do you need Bismarck after Bismarck after

Bismarck on our side –

[laughter]

— but you also need it on the Chinese side, and just to add to the problem, we have lots

of allies out there who could drag us into a war. We could have some crazy Filipino or

some crazy Japanese leader or somebody who acted irrationally. There are a lot of

moving pieces out there. There are a lot of ways you can get into a war, but what their

theory depends on is having Bismarck here, there and everywhere. That’s just not going

to happen. Look. You should vote for us not because it makes you feel good about the

situation –

[laughter]

— you should feel very depressed about this.

[laughter]

Really, really. This is a very depressing conclusion that he and I are putting forward.

[laughter]

I love going to China. I love the Chinese people and I hate to say what I’ve said up here

tonight, but if you have any hope of managing the situation, you want to be realistic

about where we’re headed and they are not realistic.

John Donvan:

Thank you, John Mearsheimer. Your time is up. Thank you.

[applause]

The motion is China and the U.S. Are Long-Term Enemies and here to make his

summarizing statement against the motion, Kevin Rudd, president of the Asia Society

Policy Institute and former prime minister of Australia.

Kevin Rudd:

As former prime minister of one of your closer allies in the Pacific –

[laughter]

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— therefore one of those moving pieces which could get you into all sorts of trouble –

[laughter]

And I remind you your oldest continuing ally in the 20th century and into the 21st, and a

country that has fought with you in every war in the last century, “Comma ” —

[laughter]

I think we deserve to have a voice at the table on these questions. And I say that

because we have a deep affection to the United States for a whole bunch of reasons;

your civil tradition, the celebration of democracy, your economic creativity. And frankly,

in the history of global super powers, the post 40 — in the — going back through time,

America has behaved as a remarkably benign superpower. I say that, say it freely, and I

say it openly. This say tough debate because we’re dealing with something brand-new;

the rise of a country which is not English speaking, which is not Western, which is not a

democracy, and is on the verge of becoming the largest economy in the world. I get the

complexity of being — working with this country in one capacity or another for the last

35 years, either as a student, an academic, in business, as a member of parliament, as a

foreign minister, as a prime minister.

And the complexity is staring at us in the face every day because we’re your ally in the

region. But I say this: There is nothing determinist, nothing sketched into the skies

above which says that the United States and China are and therefore will be long-term

enemies. There is, in my view, nobody of any serious position in either Washington or

Beijing who wants war. I’ve met most of these folks over the last decade. The challenge

of diplomacy is to ensure that we prevent that from happening. I believe we can. For

your kids’ future, I — I ask you to vote against the proposal.

John Donvan:

Thank you, Kevin Rudd. And that concludes our closing statements.

[applause]

John Donvan:

And now it’s time to learn which side you feel has argued best. We’re going to ask you

again to go to the key pads at your seat. Same as at the beginning. Look at the motion,

“China and the U.S. are long-term enemies.” If you agree with the motion, push number

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one; if you disagree, push number two; and if you remain or became undecided, push

number three. We’ll give that about 15 to 20 seconds to complete.

Okay. Thank you. We’re going to lock that out. And while we wait for the results — oh,

no, we’re not locking it out. The Elmo person is telling me that we’re not locking it

out. Well, I’m going to — I’m going to talk in the meantime. I just want to say this: We –

– we’ve been thinking about this debate for three years and — and trying to think about

who to put on the stage, who would be a terrific mix, bring intelligence and wit and

civility to it. And I have to say I think we really, really succeeded.

[applause]

And I have a total surprise announcement tonight, and it’s that we’re going to have to

ask you to vote a second time because we had a glitch.

[laughter]

So if — I saw somebody leave. I’m afraid there goes your vote. But only one person,

because you’re all here and into this. So go back to the key pads, and we’ll have you

vote a second time.

Kevin Rudd:

In Australia, we say, “Vote early, vote often.”

Male Speaker:

Sounds like Chicago.

Male Speaker:

Vote early, vote often [unintelligible].

Male Speaker:

I lived in Chicago three times.

John Donvan:

So, actually, let me — I’ll be silent for 10 more seconds of your contemplation to make

sure that you vote the way you want to, and then we’ll start. Now you all got silent. All

right. We’re good. Everybody’s voted. The vote’s locked in. We’ll have it in about a

minute and a half. Again, I want to thank these guys. A good outcome for a debate is

it’s not a deterministic event. It doesn’t always –

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[laughter]

It doesn’t always happen. And usually it does, but this one was really superb, so thank

you. I also want to mention this. This is very important. We had a total sellout

tonight. In fact, there were a lot of people who couldn’t get in, and it was delightful for

us. But the thing I want to say is that we are a nonprofit organization.

And about 60 percent of the funding this program comes from individuals who support

the program, including many of you in the audience tonight. We are incredibly,

incredibly grateful for these contributions since the ticket sales cover nowhere close to a

— it’s a very, very tiny fraction of the overall cost. So I want to say thanks, first of all, to

all of our generous supporters, some of who are here. And to the millions — now the

millions who are watching our live stream or listening to these debates for free online

and on the radio, that that gift to them is because of all of the donors here. So they will

remain anonymous for the moment, but I want to give a round of applause to

everybody who came out.

[applause]

The other thing — the other thing we are very, very proud to say is that Intelligence

Squared debates are now disseminating to educational institutions, and we know this

because we hear from them.

Teachers in high school and university level, and even some below the high school level

have been using the debates as a teaching tool. And we are delighted by that and very

proud of that. So I’m — this is all leading up, of course, to my commercial, which is we

hope that you see the value of this program. You had a very, very interesting night

tonight. And I just want to ask you, if you have the opportunity, to go to our website,

iq2us.org and make a donation. And even the little ones count. I know that’s a cliché,

but it turns out to be true. So thank you for that. Our next debate is going to be on

October 27th. The motion is “Raise the federal gas tax to fund infrastructure.” We are

talking about the bridges and roads we drive on and the fact that the American society

for civil engineers gives our state roads a grade of D. The news is better on bridges. It’s

a C plus on the bridges. But the highway trust fund which funds infrastructure repair is

just about broke, so we’re looking at the question of whether it’s time or if there is a

willingness to pay a higher gas tax to fix all of that.

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On November 2nd, we’re going to be in Washington at George Washington

University. We’re going to be debating the use of smart drugs by students. We’re

talking about college students taking drugs like Adderall without prescription to get

ahead in the classroom. Question is, is it safe? Is it cheating? Do the benefits outweigh

the risks? We’re also going to be in Chicago on November 10th at Northwestern

University School of Law debating whether prosecutors have too much power. Tickets

for all of our debates again are available at the same place where you can make a

donation, at our website, iq2us.org. And for those who are — can’t get to our live

audiences in all of these cities, there are a lot of other ways to catch the debates. You

can download our app IQ2US at the Apple Store or Google Play; Android devices also

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course, I mentioned we are live streaming, so you can watch the live stream on

IQ2US. And also, depending on where you live, the — it’s time dependent, but you can

hear our debates on a lot of public radio stations across the country. And also we’d love

to — we’re going to check the Twitter feed, see who’s tweeted tonight. But you can

follow us on Twitter and Facebook. Okay.

So, it’s all in. Our motion is this: China and the U.S. are long-term enemies. We had you

vote twice before the debate and once again afterwards, and it’s the team whose

numbers have changed the most between the two votes who will become and be

declared our winner. Let’s look at the first vote. In the opening vote, 27 percent agreed

with the motion that China and the U.S. are long-term enemies. 35 percent were

against. 38 percent were undecided. Those are the first results. Let’s look at the

second result. The team arguing for the motion that China and the U.S. are long-term

enemies, their first vote was 27 percent. Second vote was 32 percent. They pulled up 5

percentage points. That is now the number to beat. Let’s see the team against the

motion. Their vote was 35 percent. Their second vote was 56 percent. They pulled 21

percentage points. That means the motion, China and the U.S. are long-term enemies

has been defeated. And the team arguing for that side is our winner. Our

congratulations to them. And thank you from me, John Donvan and Intelligence

Squared U.S. We’ll see you next time.

[applause]

[end of transcript]

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