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	ADM Locklear roundtable with East Asia Media Hub
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        <h1 class="title">ADM Locklear roundtable with East Asia Media Hub</h1>
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    <div><b>By Presenters: Admiral Samuel J. Locklear III, Commander, U.S. Pacific Command</b> <span class="date">/ Published Feb. 1, 2013</span></div>
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<p><em><span style="font-size: 13px;">DISCLAIMER: Please note that this transcript is not 100% complete and some questions were condensed to their main points, while the Admiral’s answers are transcribed as much as we could based on the quality of the audio recording of the discussion.</span></em></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;"><strong>PAUL WATZLAVICK: </strong>Good morning, this is Paul Watzlavick, Director of the East Asia and Pacific Media Hub here in Tokyo. Thank you for being with us today. We have very special guest today on our teleconference, Admiral Samuel Locklear, commander of U.S. Pacific Command. I’d like to introduce the format and then have Admiral Locklear make his opening remarks. Today we have journalists from around the region participating in the call. Participants are currently muted. When you want to ask a question, please press 9 -1 on your handset and you will be loaded into the queue who will then unmute you and notify you when it’s time to ask your question. We have approximately 45 minutes today for the teleconference. We’d like to keep our questions brief. Give the Admiral time to answer everyone we can get in today. So thank you very much again for your participation and Admiral Locklear, I turn it over to you for your opening comments sir.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;"><strong>ADM. LOCKLEAR: </strong>Well thank you Paul for that introduction and thanks to all of you who have made time to this call today. I’m told we have a diverse group of more than 60 people from throughout the Asia-Pacific that expand about 15 nations with many of our smaller island nations joining a call like this for the first time. It’s humbling to see your interest in what we’re doing here at PACOM and I hope you find today’s discussion informative. And a special thanks to the folks at East Asia and Pacific Media Hub for arranging this unique opportunity.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;">Before taking your questions, I’d like to share my thoughts on the Asia-Pacific. Where I see opportunities for cooperation or where potential challenges exist. I’ve been in command of the U.S. Pacific command for almost a year now and during that time I’ve grown in my appreciation of the diverse complexities that exist. As you may know, the Asia-Pacific encompasses over half the earth’s surface and well more than half of its population. It’s incredibly socially, culturally, economically, and geopolitically diverse.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;">The many nations who associate themselves here; two of the three largest economies of the world, seven of the ten smallest, the most populace nation in the world, the world’s largest democracy, the world’s largest Muslim majority nation, the smallest republic in the world, nine of the ten world’s largest ports, and the busiest sea lanes in the world with over 8 trillion dollars of two-way trade with half the world’s container cargo and 70 percent of ship borne energy passing through the Pacific every day. It is also the most militarized area of the world. 7 of the world’s 10 largest standing militaries. The world’s largest and most sophisticated navies are the Asia-Pacific. And five of the world’s declared nuclear nations are here. All of these aspects of the Asia-Pacific, when you take them and sum all together result in a unique strategic complexity. And of course this complexity is magnified by wide, diverse group of challenges. Challenges that can significantly stress the security environment. Let me just name a few of them. First, climate change. Climate change is impacting our weather, its impacting sea levels. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;">It’s impacting the future security of many nations in the region and we must understand it, and must understand how to deal with it when the time comes. Transnational non-state threats such as violent extremist organizations, terrorist organizations, drug flow, human capital, and those types of things will continue to give us problems. There are historic and emerging border and territorial disputes. Access and freedom of action in the shared domain of sea space and cyber are becoming increasing challenges. It looks like instability on the Korean peninsula will persist. And of course, how the rise of China and India as global economic powers and regional military powers emerge and how they integrate into an established, generally peaceful and stable security environment is yet to be seen. And adding to this picture, a recognition that no single government mechanism exist in the Asia-Pacific to manage the relationships and provide a framework for conflict resolution. That’s why I think the U.S. rebalance strategy is important to the Asia-Pacific. It is the foundation for the many opportunities for the cooperation of the U.S. with our allies, partners and friends in the Asia-Pacific. Our strategy draws from the strength of the entire U.S. government including policy, diplomacy, trade, and, of course, security, which is the area I work in. But I want to stress that this is the whole of government, whole of people approach to the Asia-Pacific. It’s not just about the military piece of this, which we seem to focus on. Now there’s been significant, speculation and skepticism about the U.S. rebalance. Let me just say this, the rebalance is a strategy of collaboration and cooperation and the keystone of our rebalance will be to use that strategy of collaboration to modernize and strengthen our five Pacific treaty alliances and this work moving ahead in earnest. From a military commander’s perspective, I can tell you about our alliances. You know the U.S. only has seven treaty allies in the world; five are in the Asia-Pacific. And that these alliances bring with them years of mutual trust and respect, significant interoperability and information sharing, a common view of regional security landscapes and challenges and they provide a very good base from which multilateral relationships can grow like what we’re seeing today. All of which will continue to underpin U.S. security objectives in the Asia-Pacific for decades to come. And while modernizing or strengthening our bilateral relationships, we’re also going to strengthen our commitment to our partners in the region, and the multilateral forums such as ASEAN and the East Asia Summit. We’ll pursue a lasting relationship with China including a military to military relationship. Our two countries have a strong stake in regional peace and stability and an interest in building a cooperative bilateral relationship. We’re hoping to look past the areas where we differ and to focus our relationship on our converging interest, such as counter-piracy, counter-terrorism, protecting sea lanes of communication, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief just to name a few. So today there’s nearly 350,000 U.S. military personnel serving forward, living in the Asia-Pacific. And with them are nearly 70,000 family members, all of whom continue to demonstrate significant U.S. commitment to our allies and partners. Let me close my opening remarks by just saying this; America is a Pacific power. Sometimes, I think that folks in the Asia-Pacific look to the east and they see a partner that is a long ways away. We are a Pacific power. Not only are we on the Pacific, but we also have historic ties, economic ties here that is important for them to recognize that we have significant interests as a nation in the Asia-Pacific that we think will continue to decades to come. So I look forward to cooperating and working together will all of our friends, our allies, our partners, and building a security environment that for this amazing region will provide hope, peace and security for children and our grandchildren. So I’ll pause there now and answer your questions.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;"><strong><strong style="font-size: small;">WATZLAVICK:</strong></strong><strong> </strong>Admiral. Thank you very much for those opening remarks. We’re going to go now to our journalists around the region who are participating. What we want to do is going to unmute you, identify you, but we would like you all to state your name and your affiliation. So the first call, Admiral, will be from Guangzhou, China, KDnet. Call please identify yourself and ask your question. Thank you.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;"><strong>ADM. LOCKLEAR: </strong>Thank you very much for those opening remarks. We’re going to go now to our journalists around the region who are participating. What we want to do is going to unmute you, identify you, but we would like you all to state your name and your affiliation. So the first call, Admiral, will be from Guangzhou, China, KDnet. Call please identify yourself and ask your question. Thank you.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;"><strong>MEDIA:</strong> Good morning sir. My name is Koko Lang... *inaudible* my question is what will the U.S. *inaudible*</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;"><strong>ADM. LOCKLEAR: </strong>Yeah would you repeat the question, I didn’t, I understood the "What would the U.S. do in which country for human rights?"</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;"><strong>MEDIA:</strong> *inaudible*</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;">*inaudible*</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;"><strong>ADM. LOCKLEAR: </strong>Yeah I think that first of all thank you for your question. And I’m glad to hear you’re calling in from Guangzhou, I was recently in Guangzhou on a mil to mil counterpart visit and I was unbelievably impressed by the progress in Guangzhou both culturally and economically so you’re to be congratulated on that. I believe your question is "What will the U.S. do to support human rights in developing countries?" I believe that the U.S. has a very good record of having a policies and perspectives in taking leadership role in encouraging developing nations to first understand the responsibility to their people, responsibility in how their government must respond to people who are free, and how their military must support that in a society where civilian rule is important and that human rights should be the center focused on all the decisions that are made. So I think the U.S. role in this has been pretty clear over time and my expectation is that it will continue and it will continue underpin our strategy as we go forward.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;"><strong><strong style="font-size: small;"><strong>WATZLAVICK:</strong></strong></strong> Admiral. Thank you for that, our next call today is from Indonesia, Bvin News? Caller will you state your name and state your question clearly please.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;"><strong>ADM. LOCKLEAR: </strong>Thank you for that, our next call today is from Indonesia, Bvin News? Caller will you state your name and state your question clearly please.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;"><strong>MEDIA:</strong> Yes, thank you. Good morning Admiral. My name is *inaudible*... Indonesia... my question is a little bit comprehensive... *inaudible*... Obama... *inaudible* The U.S. Is starting to expand *inaudible*... partnership ... *inaudible*</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;"><strong>ADM. LOCKLEAR: </strong>Well, thank you for that great question. It’s true our president has signed an agreement with each other that gives us specific directions on how we as military and government officials must progress together on the great partnership that we have with the great nation of Indonesia. Just as you, it’s good that you asked this question, I will leave later next week to make my official visit to Jakarta, to visit with the leadership of both military and civilian.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;"><strong>LEADERSHIP of INDONESIA:</strong> I very much look forward to the three or four days that I will be hosted in your country. And at that time, we will take the opportunity to ensure that the roadmap that we are on together from a mil to mil perspective to train the U.S. in Indonesia and the leadership role that Indonesia will play and will continue to play in the your part of the world as well as the various multilateral organizations and multilateral operations that may be going on. So we will be focused on, continue to focus on those things that number one are important to Indonesia. I think maritime security is very important, supporting the both of us, you live in the crossroads of the really one of the most important logistics site in the world and that your leadership in that area and our support of your leadership in that area will be key as we move forward. So we have a lot of good things planned, a lot of good exercises together as well as growing multilateral exercises as well.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;"><strong><strong style="font-size: small;"><strong>WATZLAVICK:</strong></strong></strong> Admiral. Thank you for that. Our next caller is from Taiwan TVBS. Caller, if you please state your name and your question. Thank you.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;"><strong>MEDIA:</strong> Hi! Good morning. My name is *inaudible*... I have a question. China and Japan are escalating on Daiyou Island. Is military action are enforced... will U.S. *inaudible*... China... *inaudible*</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;"><strong>ADM. LOCKLEAR:</strong>Well a great question. Let me start with the second question first. It’s not really my position to support or not support what president ma and the people of Taiwan choose to do. So I will defer that question to the people of Taiwan. Your first question though is a good one. I think it’s first of all; I’m not going to speculate on what the U.S. would do militarily in any contingency anywhere in the world. It’s just not our policy to do that. I would say though that in the scenario that you talked about in the East China Sea between PRC, Between China and Japan. Let me make sure everybody is clear. First, the U.S. does not take sides in territorial disputes anywhere in the world except on the ones we may have of our own. But we don’t take side on those. But we do expect as we expect in any region is that these disputes will be done in a fashion that is peaceful, without coercion, and that it ultimately will be satisfied and decided between the government and without military intervention. So that’s our hope. You know, what’s at stake here in the Asia-Pacific from a security perspective, from an economic, from a human capital perspective, to even contemplate that there would be use of force in these type of issues , I think, is really unacceptable. We need to be thinking and having our dialogue, talk about how we’re going to work together to produce a security environment that allows us to get through these disagreements we have with each other because they will continue. That’s the just the nature of humanity.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;"><strong><strong style="font-size: small;"><strong>WATZLAVICK:</strong></strong></strong> Admiral. Thank you for that. Our next question is from Fiji. The Fiji Sun. Caller, if you could please state your name and your question please. Thank you.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;"><strong>MEDIA:</strong> Good morning, Sir. *inaudible*</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;"><strong>ADM. LOCKLEAR:</strong>Well good to hear you from Fiji, you live in the most beautiful parts of the world, so we’re envious of you. I believe that your question was that you are moving towards your elections this year, I think, in 2014. I would say that the PACOM perspective and I believe the U.S. perspective is that we are encouraged, we encourage and we are encouraged by Fiji’s progress towards free and fair democratic elections. And we look forward to re-engaging there in Fiji soon. And we wish well. This can be difficult sometimes and we understand. And I’m sure that Americans join me in hoping that your elections serve the people of Fiji well.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;"><strong><strong style="font-size: small;"><strong>WATZLAVICK:</strong></strong></strong><strong> </strong>Admiral, thank you. Our next question is from Malaysia. *inaudible* Caller, please state your name and your question for the Admiral please. Thank you.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;"><strong>MEDIA:</strong> Good morning Admiral. My name is *inaudible*... regarding... * inaudible* What is your approach on to ease the tension and whether is it are you going to push for treaty or is it basically on humanitarian assistance, can you explain?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;"><strong>ADM. LOCKLEAR:</strong>Yeah, I think that I understood the question. You’re talking about the current tensions that are in the SCS and ECS and what are our intentions. Well, I think our first intention is to ensure is we maintain a good dialogue between our allies and our partners, including with China and all the countries that are affected by this type of concern in the maritime domain. That we do good information sharing so we all have a sense of what’s going on, that we continue to encourage that the disputes and the activities that each country undertakes be done with law enforcement maritime, fishery patrols, those types of things and not to introduce military hardware aspects into it that might be lead to miscalculation. So we’re trying to do all we can to manage the environment, the security environment so that we don’t have a miscalculation that causes us to go in a direction that we don’t want it to go. We’re also very much interested in the multilateral cooperation with the countries in the region. There leadership in this, a code of conduct would go a long ways in helping the nations in the region deal with their differences as the governments work out a long term solution so we’ve very much in favor of a code of conduct and we would be certainly willing to assist in facilitate that when possible. Now in the areas of humanitarian assistance disaster relief that you mentioned. This problem goes well beyond any territorial disputes, is what we’re talking about. We’re talking about bringing together nations, the powers of nations, including their military powers to be able to quickly and effectively assist where we can in the response to the response of large natural disasters. Whether it’s tsunami in Indonesia, an earthquake in Japan, a storm in the U.S. Anywhere in this region, we want to ensure that we have the right level of cooperation that we thought through the processes of how we can bring assistance quickly as militaries because in crisis, particularly, in humanitarian crisis, the military can bring things quickly to restore hope, to bring order to the problems so that we can, so that other government agencies can respond and get ahead and to get control of the crisis. So this idea of learning how to cooperate for human assistance disaster relief is a great idea and it’s the right idea and it’s the future of the security environment here in the Asia-Pacific, I’m convinced. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;"><strong><strong style="font-size: small;"><strong>WATZLAVICK:</strong></strong></strong> Admiral. Thank you. Our next question is from Australia. The Australian. Caller, please identify yourself and state your question.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;"><strong>ADM. LOCKLEAR:</strong> Thank you. Our next question is from Australia. The Australian. Caller, please identify yourself and state your question.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;"><strong>MEDIA:</strong> Hello Admiral. My name Brandon Nicholson from the Australian newspaper on base in Canberra. The *inaudible* the U.S. rebalancing or whatever the terminology is currently. Clearly Australia has a very intense interest in this. The Marine Training components across the north Australia. Australia is going to increase over time to something like 2 1⁄2 thousand personnel. We’re curious to know just how the U.S., military in particular, sees this relationship development. How important is Australia to the hands on military people and what can we expect to see in the years to come. There’s been talk of increased aircraft, increased ship visits and some of your think tanks, for instance, have talked about the possibility of cooperation in terms of possible submarine based off the coast of Australia. Logistically, how would that work, how feasible is it?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;"><strong>ADM. LOCKLEAR: </strong>Brandon that was a lot of questions and let me see if I can frame that for you in a way that the entire office can see our perspective. The term we use is interchangeable between rebalance and pivot, I think, depending on who you talk to but for me it’s a rebalance. If you take a look, I challenge everyone to do this to take a world map and to sit in your own country, make that the center of the world map and then take a look at it from that perspective. So for me as the PACOM commander, I go down to Canberra and I sit and I look at the world map from Australia being the center of it, I get a very different view than I get from when I look at it from Hawaii or from Washington D.C., and I start to have a sense of the things and the security environment that concern the people of Australia as well as people in Indonesia and India and other countries and I start to see, first, the growing importance of the Indian ocean and we’re really going to go well beyond conventionally talking about the only, only about the Asia-Pacific, it’s really about the indo Asia-Pacific. Because of how connected the world is and how important these large bodies of water are and the countries around them are to the security and the prosperity of the future generations. So when we look at our relationship with Australia, number one a very good close ally, historically has been a alongside U.S. on many times in the past and I think we’ll hopefully, hopefully we’ll be continuing in the future. And as we look at the security challenges whether it’s climate change, or HADR, or whether it’s maritime security or whether it’s cyber security or whether it’s space security. All those things I view from the PACOM headquarters here that Australia is a critical pillar of the strategy we have here in this theatre and we’ll continue to operate closely. Now, where we’re going to have ship visits and those types of things, I think it’s not really relevant to discussion here. What really is relevant is first of all, for the whole audience, is that the rebalance, the U.S. rebalance is not about establishing U.S. bases anywhere else in this theatre. It’s not our objective. Our objective is to build on the relationships that we have created in peaceful, relatively peaceful Asia-Pacific, indo Pacific to the last 60 years. We continue to build on those, continue to posture ourselves with our allies, with our partners and with our emerging partners and be able to work together to build a security environment that protects the interests of everyone and that’s including bringing a rising China into the secure environment in a way where they feel that their interests are protected as well as the people around are comfortable within that environment. And the same could be said about India’s emerging roles. So Australia, to answer the question... look at the facts that Australia is important to me. Thank you Brandon.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;"><strong><strong style="font-size: small;"><strong>WATZLAVICK:</strong></strong></strong> Admiral thank you. I apologize for the beeps on the line, we had a few people that dropped off but put them back on.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;">Admiral thank you. I apologize for the beeps on the line, we had a few people that dropped off but put them back on.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;"><strong>ADM. LOCKLEAR: </strong>Okay.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;"><strong><strong style="font-size: small;"><strong>WATZLAVICK:</strong></strong></strong> Okay. So we are about 2/3 of the way through our call and we still have a lot of people on the line. We’re going back to China now. The 21st entry business herald out of Shanghai has a call on the line. Caller, please identify yourself and ask your question. Thank you.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;"><strong>MEDIA:</strong> Thanks sir, I’m Ling... I’m from the 21st entry business herald and thank you for your speech. I’d like to ask for one question. In 2005, *inaudible* for China include the responsible holder but five years, here are we to this rebalance and China. In your opinion, what’s the difference between these two expressions and what does that make the U.S. ... going to change. Thank you.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;"><strong>ADM. LOCKLEAR: </strong>Well I’m... let me just... I won’t comment on what Sec. Clinton said specifically because I don’t have it in front of me, but I think your question is what are the things that as China grows as a regional and world economic power and a regional security partner. From my perspective as PACOM commander, what can we do better, all of us do better to work together to allow China to assume the position that they need to assume. First, I think, we should make sure that we have a robust dialogue, both economically, politically and militarily so we’re work hard at the military to military piece of it because it’s important that the U.S. military presence in the Asia-Pacific and the Chinese military PLA presence that we don’t have miscalculations, that we understand each other. And we’re working to do that and we have good dialogues, and good cross visits to each other. We have invited the Chinese navy to come to Hawaii for the rim of the Pacific exercise in 2014, it’s the world’s largest exercise, and we have 22 nations. And this would be ... these types of things are great opportunities for us to get to know each other and to build trust and cooperation. And to understand how we operate together, so for the military side, I think that using those opportunities to build trust, I think also, that China has an opportunity here as they emerge to be a real world leader, to be a real regional leader. I think they have the opportunity as they look at their core interests and core values and that they’ve looked to have to secure those just like all countries do is that they recognize their leadership role and that they find peaceful mechanisms to be able to help their neighbors, and help the rest of the world work through these, and I sense that that’s happening. So I think, you know, given beyond the immediate fractioned areas in the worlds are in the Asia-Pacific today. I’m confident that the, we’re going to be able to, if we continue to work together, be able to bring assimilate China in the security environment in a way that’s good for China and good for the rest of the region and as well as good for the U.S. So we all have room to prosper here. Again, I go back to the world belongs to everyone and we all have now because we’re globalize, all of us have interests around the world and we have to figure how to live in that world together in productive, safe, prosperous way.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;"><strong><strong style="font-size: small;"><strong>WATZLAVICK:</strong></strong></strong> Admiral. Thank you. We have Korea on the line. The YTN network. Caller, if you could please identify yourself, state your question. Thank you</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;"><strong>MEDIA:</strong><strong> </strong>Thank you, my name is *inaudible*...news channel in Seoul, Korea. My question is about North Korea, nuclear issue. A couple of points; first, can I get your current assessment on the possible North Korea nuclear test *inaudible* North Korea. And the second point, is your general assessment on North Korean capability in terms of the size, weight of the weapon. We think the weapon are small are large enough to place on a long range rocket. And lastly, what is can be the possible military response if they conduct the nuclear test. Thank you very much</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;"><strong>ADM. LOCKLEAR: </strong>Well thank you for those questions. I’m going to have to say on most of them that you know it’s not our policy nor is it the policy of the South Korea military to talk about military contingencies that we may or may not plan for events. But let me talk about the North Korea and the and their *inaudible*. Certainly the statements that North Korea is making would lead you to believe that they are desirous of another test. And these statements are provocative and I believe we all agreed that the test would be a significant violation of the UN Security Council resolutions. These types of provocations that we have seen in the past would only increase Pyongyang’s isolation. And its continued focus on this nuclear program, missile program is really not doing anything to help the North Korean people. Which I understand need help. So we’ll remain in close consultation with our South Korean and our other allies and continue to monitor the threat of a nuclear test from North Korea. And as well as any threat to the U.S. and our allies. The U.S. closely monitors all threats to international security environment. Of course, we have the capability to respond if and when that’s appropriate. So we’re not really going to talk about military options, plans, or intelligence however we do stand ready to defend U.S. territory, our allies and our national interests. So I give the message I think that I’d like to from the PACOM perspective to be exact. As you look at it from the Asia-Pacific security environment, the activities in North Korea have the potential to be very disruptive to the safe and security environment that I think all of us want. And the international community, we’ve got to do all we can to get North Korea to start behaving within the UN Security Council resolution requirements.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;"><strong><strong style="font-size: small;"><strong>WATZLAVICK:</strong></strong></strong> Admiral. Thank you. We’re going to go to Vietnam. We have a caller from *inaudible* newspaper. Caller, please identify yourself and state your question clearly. 1 Feb 2013, ADM Locklear roundtable with East Asia Media Hub</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;"><strong>MEDIA:</strong><strong> </strong>*inaudible* I have a few questions. First, in *inaudible*Will there be military bases in the Philippines or Vietnam in the near future? Is it a little bit of a stress of the U.S. to be in so...*inaudible*</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;"><strong>ADM. LOCKLEAR: </strong>Okay, well let me see if I can stress those. You know firstly, the first question you asked was about the potential tension between established powers, I assume you mean the U.S. and the rise of China or another power. And how is that going to work? I think the key here that I can make as that occurs and it going to occur that we have to manage the competition between a rising power and an already established power and that can be done. I’m convinced that can be done. But it has to be done in a way where we don’t when we have things that we don’t agree on, that it doesn’t lead to miscalculation. That we find the places where we... our interests converge in relation to the ... I’ll talk about the Chinese and the United States but I think it relates to every nation in this region is the areas where our interests converge are infinite. There is where they diverge which causes friction. And those limited areas, we ... in the world we’re in today, we should be able to have mechanisms to work through that. So to the degree that ASEAN now is attempting to work through some of the issues territorial disputes and code of conduct, I think it’s incumbent on all the nations of the world to support the people in this area, including China, and the nations of ASEAN to encourage them to try to get to a way they can work through their differences without miscalculation and disrupting the security environment. The second question about where are we with our relationship with Vietnam. Earlier this month, we conducted a very a successful defense policy dialogue in Hanoi. We discussed new and innovative ways to grow our bilateral relationship, search and rescue, maritime security, Humanitarian Aid Disaster Relief and we’re very positive about our growing relationship with Vietnam and we hope to continue increasing our bilateral ties so that again, to help secure regional peace and prosperity. To your question about whether there are any bases planned in the Philippines and Vietnam and others, I go back to my earlier comment to all of you, the U.S. has no intention of establishing more bases. What we hope to do with our partners, allies and friends is continue to operate closely, to work closely military to military, government to government, economy to economy, to ensure that U.S. presence that people in there in the region are aware of it, that they are assured by it, because the , I mean , if you think about the last 60 years, this part of the world has been pretty safe, I mean it had a few places where it wasn’t, but it was pretty safe. And I believe that security was underpinned who is interested in the Pacific. And I think that the U.S. is interested in the coming century in the Pacific and the Indian Ocean will be a good thing for overall security. Now, the question here was about are we over strength. I think that certainly after when the berlin wall came down and then the aftermath of that and then a follow on a few years later by 9/11, the U.S. leaders wrote U.S. leadership on what we call the global war on terrorism. And that pulled us very heavily into some very costly operations... good operations, well intentioned operations, well needed, but costly. That it has and somewhat directed our focus to the middle east and so now after 10 years over there, after Iraq and now after Afghanistan, we taking a hard look at what those are militaries look like in the future, just as all nations do. We’re looking hard at where are our interests for the future for our key interests and many of those questions point us to the Asia-Pacific. So the whole idea of the Rebalance, it should be a signal to the people of this region that the American people understand how important Asia-Pacific is to them. So to the question of whether we’re overstretched, no matter what we look like in the future, it will be imperative for the U.S. because of the strength of our interests in this region for us to remain actively engaged here as a good partner, as a good ally and as a good friend of all countries in this region.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;"><strong><strong style="font-size: small;"><strong>WATZLAVICK:</strong></strong></strong> Admiral. Thank you, we have time for one last question, I’d offer it to *inaudible* one of our Japanese partners, they are on the line. Caller, if you could please state your name and ask your question of the Admiral, and the Admiral will make some concluding comments for the wrap up.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;"><strong>ADM. LOCKLEAR:</strong>Thank you, we have time for one last question, I’d offer it to *inaudible* one of our Japanese partners, they are on the line. Caller, if you could please state your name and ask your question of the Admiral, and the Admiral will make some concluding comments for the wrap up.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;"><strong>MEDIA:</strong><strong> </strong>Good morning.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;"><strong>ADM. LOCKLEAR:</strong>Good morning.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;"><strong>MEDIA:</strong> *inaudible*my question is about *inaudible*... cooperation or dialogue *inaudible* Indian Ocean *inaudible*</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;"><strong>ADM. LOCKLEAR:</strong>Yeah, that’s a great question and a very insightful question. If you look at... Remember I started in the beginning remarks about the size of this area of the world. And the complexity of it and the differences, I mean, you can go from the Straits of Hormuz in the Middle East to the coast of California and from the north, the South Pole with well over half the people in the world and certainly the largest center of gravity for economic growth. There is no simple answer I think to a security organization. One security organization that will work because it’s too diverse so the model that sometimes people will ask me, they’ll say why don’t you have a NATO in the Indo Asia-Pacific. I served in NATO before and it’s a fine organization but I don’t see a parallel here. I see, rather, what I would refer to as a patchwork or a patchwork quilt I would call it of security relationships in various parts of this vast region that work together to be able to sense and understand where the security environment is and the work together to ensure that the environment is strong enough to withstand any shocks that may occur to it. Whether it’s a natural disaster or another kind of contingency. So we have some fairly mature, relatively mature relationships that you mentioned. ASEAN is one of them. In the Indian Ocean, those are developing and many of those are developing under the leadership of Indian Ocean countries as well as, for instance, India is taking a leadership role and working to deal with some of these security networks and we welcome that. We welcome that. I think that if I look PACOM’s role in this as we go into the future, the U.S. role, it is not to own and dictate to each of these security relationships, it could be a valuable partner, it’s to assist with resources, and assist with training and experience where we can, and then to ensure that to the best we can that all of the various regions of the security organizations are working towards the same end state. And I think we’re heading in that direction in a good way. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;"><strong><strong style="font-size: small;"><strong>WATZLAVICK:</strong></strong></strong> Admiral. Thank you so much for your valuable time today. Callers, participants, thank you very much for being with us. Admiral. Do you have any final remarks? And if not, we very much working with you and look forward to working with you in the future.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;"><strong>ADM. LOCKLEAR:</strong>Paul, I just want again, thank all of you again and just you taking the time to try to understand the complexity of the security environment and to hear it from me and hopefully, you’re out talking to the other military commanders and the other key countries that are in this region and getting their perspectives. I believe we all have kind of the similar perspective about this and that we ought to be working towards peace and prosperity, instead of just always *inaudible* to work on our *inaudible* where we have the restriction. Even though I know those will continue. So I’m sitting here in Hawaii. It’s beautiful and sunny and hopes that’s true where you are and if you get a chance to come to Hawaii, we’ll give you a good Aloha. So thank you very much.</span></p>
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