Transcript
RICHARD BUSH: We come to the conclusion that in this dynamic of a rising China and a status quo United States, that a lot—or most—of these issues can be managed; that the leaders of both sides understand the situation they're dealing with. They understand this dynamic, they understand history. They understand the mutual dependence.
And they actually understand the opportunity that presents itself of great power cooperation: that China and the United States working together along with the other great powers—the European Union, perhaps Russia, perhaps India, perhaps Brazil, certainly Japan—can be a significant force for the preservation of peace and security in the world. And, indeed, these great powers have an obligation to do so. This was the concept behind Bob Zoellick's term "responsible stakeholder." And this is a vision that is worth pursuing.
I mentioned that sometimes analysts have the job of calming people when they're agitated, and other times they have the job of agitating people when they're calm. I just provided a bit of calm, I hope.
And what in this book is a message of agitation? That is that within this optimistic message that the United States and China together can manage China's rise, the one issue where we worry that the United States and China might have problems: it's the Taiwan issue. If that is not handled well, then it could lead to conflict.
Now, why do we say this? And here we engage in what we feel is some informed speculation. Let me be clear that we don't feel that the probability of this is necessarily high. But we do feel that costs are extremely high. And so it is worth alerting people to even the low probability.
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