Transcript
DAVID SHAMBAUGH: I'm perhaps prejudiced a bit, but I think there's probably no greater challenge to the United States than China in many spheres, many various dimensions of which we are all quite familiar, particularly China's external relations in different parts of the world -- North Korean nuclear weapons; Iran; broadly speaking, U.S.-China relations -- all dimensions. But at the bottom of the U.S.-China relationship I think still lies the underlying issue of the Chinese political system. It's been there since 1949, the Chinese political system, but as an issue in the U.S.-China relationship, and even since the Nixon opening and the normalization of relations under the Carter Administration, it has continued to sort of fester as an issue in the relationship. So, it does matter to the relationship, the U.S.-China relationship -- indeed, China's relations with the rest of the world -- the type of government it has, the type of regime it has, and the nature of the political system domestically inside of China. I feel that it's a dimension of the relationship that has not received adequate attention in Washington and in the policy discourse that we have in this city.
In fact, here again I'd like to compliment the Thornton Center and Cheng Li since he has arrived and particularly for bringing this dimension more into the center of our discussions in Washington, because most of the time we have these meetings and we talk about China's external behavior outside of its borders in the various dimensions. But I think we need to keep our eye also simultaneously on things going on inside of China's borders, and that includes first and foremost the nature of the Chinese ruling party and political system.
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