All right, I think we have most people now, so I'll start up this session. So hello, everyone. My name is Jason Phan, and I'm currently a sophomore studying quantitative economics and international relations at Tufts University. My classmate Guan, who is the senior studying international relations and I will be the moderators for today. We are beyond excited to welcome all of the high school students to the 2021 Inquiry Simulation, which will focus on China as a regional and global influence. Even though the format of this year's Inquiry Simulation is virtual, it is great to have everyone here. We begin this year with the Hunter Farnham Inquiry Memorial Lecture to be given by Robert Ross, professor of political science at Boston College and a renowned expert on China's security and foreign policies. The IGL begins a Hunter Farnham Inquiry Memorial Lecture to honor Hunter Farnham, an educator and humanitarian who spent most of his career working for the US agency for international development in more than 35 countries. When he retired from government service, he taught at Phillips Exeter Academy and brought many delegations to the Inquiry Simulation. He also became a member of the IGL External Advisory Board. He was a great friend to the IGL. Today, we are honored to have Robert Ross here this afternoon to deliver the Inquiry's keynote address in his name, along with being a professor at Boston College. Professor Ross is also an associate at the John King Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University. In 1994 to 1995, he was Fulbright Professor at the Chinese Foreign Affairs College. In 2003, he was a visiting senior fellow at the Institute of International Strategic Studies, Tsinghua University, Beijing. And in 2014, was visiting scholar School of International Relations at Peking University. His recent publications include Chinese Security Policy, Structure, Power and Politics, China's Ascent, Power, Security and the Future of International Politics and New Directions in the Study of Chinese Foreign Policy. Professor Ross has testified before various Senate and House committees and the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee. He advised US government agencies and he serves on the Academic Advisory Group, US China Working Group, United States Congress. So for today's lecture, Professor Ross will first give a brief lecture on China's security for 20 minutes, which is followed by a Q&A session. Then at 4.45 PM, we will send you to a different meeting and have you guys go to breakout rooms for discussions. In the end, today's meeting will adjourn at 5.15 PM. Professor Ross, the floor is now yours. Thank you, Jason. It's truly an honor to be here. My relationship to the Institute of Global Leadership goes back at least 20, 25 years. I work closely with Sherm Teichmann when he was the director of the program and many of your students and alumni. So it's a pleasure to be back. And as a Tufts alumni, I will not tell you what year I graduated. It's still a pleasure to be back. And it's an honor to be teaching and working with this program on the engagement symposium. Perhaps there's nothing more important in today's world today than the rise of China. And there you can do a lot worse than to spend your time trying to understand the rise of China, what it means to the world, what it means to the regions. In the limited time we have, I wanna quickly sort of ask some questions about what China means for regions and the world. We begin with understanding what it means to be a rising power for the world. We say in international politics that there is no real consensus about how to run the world. The most powerful sit around the table, they make up the rules and the rest sort of follow along because the United States or Europe decided what to do. And so the rules of the road, whether who's allied with whom or who's got the largest navy or who's got the most security or who made the rules of trade or investment, they were made when China was weak. When China was coming out of civil war in the 1950s and 60s, when it was going through extreme poverty and revolution and the culture revolution. And so it wasn't at the table, we say. And so now that China is a strong great power, it looks at the rules and says, well, you know, we have to renegotiate these rules. They don't really represent our interests, they represent your interests. And so we wanna place at the table. We wanna negotiate and talk with you about how we can change these rules and change the international politics. So it better reflects just how powerful China is today, that China is an equal in many respects in the United States and it should have an equal say. And so this is the process of change we're seeing today as China wakes up and says, well, we don't like the way this is and we weren't around when you made these rules, it's time to change them. Now we see this process all over the world in every respect you can imagine. We see it in East Asia. So the United States and East Asia, if you will, created the regional order after World War II. And what did we do? We put bases for our army and our air force and our Navy in Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, and our Navy controlled the South China Sea and the Sea of Japan. And what could China do about it? Absolutely nothing. Because it was either dealing with Mao Zedong and revolution and instability or was still weak and getting stronger. Well, now China says, we don't like your bases surrounding us. Now that's not an unreasonable demand. After all, American power surrounding China is gonna make China fairly nervous now they have something to do with that. But China doesn't have to do much. Simply because it's more powerful. Other countries are saying, oh, now there are two countries we need to be nice to. They always had to be nice to the United States because it was the only great power with the Navy and air force. Well, now there's a second power, China and the United States with air force and Navy. And so they're saying, well, we need to be nice to two countries. So all of a sudden you begin to see America's long-term friends, South Korea, Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia. They say, well, we're not so sure we wanna cooperate with you as much as we used to because we have to be nice to China because they're powerful too. And so we're finding American friends and allies not so cooperative with America and our alliances are weakening. Now when America's finding itself in East Asia as becoming no longer number one and we're used to being number one but that's what happens when you have another rising power. And so we're seeing East Asia change. But we're also seeing Europe change. United States is used to having the NATO countries cooperate with America because America was so important to NATO security. Well, two things happened. One, we talk a lot about Russia in the United States these days but Russia is really very, very weak. So the European countries will say, well, maybe we don't need you anymore. We can manage Russia. They're not that threatening. But then second, I know you're concerned about China but China is very far away. And we're gonna be more worried about Russia. And you want us to help in dealing with China but the European countries say, no, you can't count on us for China. Why? Because China is so important economically now. So it's a rising power militarily but it's a rising power economically. And the European countries say, we need to take advantage of China cooperate with China for our economy and we're not going to risk that to help you in Asia, when Asia's so far away. So we have countries in East Asia, South Korea, Philippines to say, we're not gonna get involved in the US-China conflict. Why? Because China is powerful and they need to be nice. That's what new countries do to other countries. And we have the European countries say, you have to manage China on your own. Don't ask for our help. Why? Because China is now a major power in the world. It was important to them and they're not going to cooperate in Asia when Asia is not important to them. All this is new. All this is the rise of China. Now, what rising powers do, and that includes China, is that it makes the other established powers nervous. Because the United States is used to being number one. And now we have to share being number one. We used to having allies. Now we don't have allies anymore. We used to be number one in the South China Sea when our military was the strongest, but now there's a second military there. And so the United States is nervous just losing its allies. United States is nervous because in Asia, maybe China will take over Asia. That makes the US nervous. And we're a little nervous because we're dealing with China alone because Europe won't help us and Asia won't help us. Except for Japan. So when you think about the tension and the problem in US-China relations, they are indeed the result of the rise of China because the world is changing because of China. But that's different than saying how you respond to China. What do you do about this? Now, when we think of US-China relations, China is being very cooperative with the United States and the world. They're saying, let's have stability. Let's trade. Let's get rid of the trade war. Let's see how we can cooperate. Why? Because China is benefiting from cooperation with the United States and cooperation with the world. The United States is the unhappy. They don't like the trend because cooperation and stability is helping China grow. So if you look around the world, the United States is challenging China with its Navy, its relationship with Taiwan, with trade wars with Donald Trump, technology wars, the US started the trade war. China said, why do you want to have a trade war? Well, because we're not happy with rising China. Technology war, well, was fine for China before. They'd like it to go back. America says no. So America is pushing back on China. And that's where the tension comes from. Now, it's not to say the tension is right or wrong. But you have to ask yourself, is this helpful? How should America respond in a way that are good for America? Is the trade war good for America? Is the technology war good for America? Is military tension good for America? And there's no right or wrong answer to that. But that's the debate America's having about what do we do about the rise of China. But that's understanding China from, if you will, security perspectives and economic perspectives about Europe and Asia. But it's almost not appropriate anymore to talk about the rise of China. China is already a great power. In many ways it's equal to United States. So we used to say the world was unipolar. I don't know if it ever was, but certainly it's not anymore if it ever was. Asia's bipolar, China and the United States compete in Asia. In the aid relations around the world, China's a great power. We have to think about China's impact as a power on the world stage for the global agenda. And the global agenda is very large. The agenda of global problems is long and none of these problems can be solved without Chinese cooperation. You ignore China, you don't bring them to the table, they will not be solved. On the other hand, if you want China to come to the table, you have to cooperate with China in two respects. One, you have to say, what does China want to make an agreement possible? They're just not going to say, tell the world what you want and China will do it. Because we said before, they have their interests, they have their values and you need to meet them at least halfway if you want them to cooperate with you on the global agenda. And then second, these issues are not possible to resolve without Chinese help because China can simply walk away. And I think of the long agenda that China might or might not accept because the rules of the road, the rule-based order we said before, just as in East Asia was made without China. So they're going to want to change things. So think of the agenda. International trade, well, if you want to stabilize international trade, you need to have cooperation with China. So you don't have trade wars or sanctions or tariffs, right? And you need to have agreements on investments. You don't have investment wars. You need to have agreements on finance. You don't have currency wars. So you need to negotiate. Now you have to ask at the same time, what are China's objectives? Is China a revolutionary state that wants to overthrow the order? Or does China want to reform the order? So if you look at Chinese behavior in trade, in aid, in various things, China clearly was a beneficiary of the system that existed. And so it clearly doesn't want to overthrow that system. Again, we have a process where the world is saying, you need to agree to the old system. That's the problem. You're strong now. You must accept the rules as they were written. And China says, we like our behavior. We like our trade policies. We don't want to change. So you have to ask, to what extent do you want to have a trade war with China to make a change? Or to what extent you can manage this because China's demands are not that great? If you look at Chinese behavior, it's a reformist state. It's rules on banking, international aid banks, not that different than the World Bank. Yes, it has a larger role for the state and its economy, but interesting enough, after four years with Donald Trump, China has a more open economy for trade than Japan and the United States. So that China's not wanting to overthrow this system and there may be ways to work with it instead of coercive efforts to change China. And of course we have to ask ourselves if you want to make China change and they say no, well, you have some responsibility if you retaliate for destabilizing the world trade system. Where else does China matter? Well, certainly China matters for climate change. You cannot manage climate change without China. Now, China clearly is a problem. If you look at the data from 2020 on the amount of coal-fired energy plants that were shut down, it was a good year. But China built more coal-fired energy plants than the number that were actually shut down. So China's making the world worse despite the progress elsewhere. Well, what do you do about that? China says it wants to cooperate. On the other hand, China says I want to grow and develop faster and keep my people employed and it's expensive to do climate change. There's no free ride out there, it's expensive. So what do you do when China says we need to promote growth for employment? Pandemics, how do you cooperate with China to manage pandemics? There's with 20% of the world's population, you don't bring China on board, you're not going to manage pandemics. On the other hand, China doesn't allow free access to its health system. So how do you have true cooperation? And do you accept the limited access to for any matter of cooperation rather than say we won't cooperate because you don't follow the rules everyone else does? What about human rights around the world? Well, there are two parts to that. The Belt and Road Initiative. China attaches no conditions to giving aid to other countries. That's different than the World Bank. On the other hand, China bills them a lot faster and the roads get built and the bridges get built and the pipelines get built. Maybe that's better for development than having conditions. And what about Burma? What do we do with Chinese human rights? Well, we should be clear that China doesn't like democracy inside China. So why should they care if there's no democracy in Burma? And of course, what should we do about Xinjiang? And there's a human rights problem. What do we do about international drug trafficking? What do we do about nuclear proliferation in Iran and North Korea? There is no way to solve these problems without Chinese help. Well, this creates a real problem. On the one hand, China wants its own rules and you have to ask whether they're big or they're small, their demands. China's not following many rules and you feel that it's destabilizing the system and you want to make China comply. But then that would be treating China like an adversary. That would be treating China like an enemy. That would require sanctions on China, retaliation against China. But if you do that, you're not gonna get Chinese help on anything you want.  So it's easy in our domestic climate to say, we must retaliate against China. But we have to ask, will it be successful? One, in changing China in the Pacific issue, we're sanctioning, but two, what are the costs of all the other things you want China's cooperation on? Because China only cooperates if you're being helpful to China. So now we can do Q&A. Thank you so much, Professor Ross. So now we're going to open up for questions. Students, please use the chat box to send us your questions. And I'll get us started, Professor Ross. So under the current Biden administration, what do you think is the most important area that the US should cooperate with China? And what do you think is the most important area that the US should compete with or condemn China's action? Thank you. The challenge for the United States is to cooperate and compete simultaneously and to compete in ways that do not unnecessarily create a greater risk of war. So in many ways, the Biden administration is more aggressive or adversarial than the Trump administration was. They have said, we are going to compete with China unless it's in American interest. I don't hear them say mutual interest. I don't hear them say cooperating with Chinese interests. We're going to compete unless it's in American interest. And there's an effort on the Biden administration to signal how tough America is by strengthening its alliances around the world. And they believe Trump was too friendly to dictators. And they believe we could do it better. And so you're seeing the Biden administration actually challenging China more than the Trump administration on Taiwan, in the South China Sea, in economics. And so that is because the Biden administration says, we don't like the rise of China. We're going to try and stop. Well, are these policies, for example, the trade war that Donald Trump won, China's winning the trade war, Trump started, but China's winning it. Its economy grew faster during the trade war than the American economy. And second, the trade deficit in the United States with China got bigger during the trade war. So you may not like the rise of China but is a trade war the right policy. You may want to be tough on Taiwan so you can signal the world how tough you are. But if you create a later likelihood of war, is it worth being tough on Taiwan? You have to manage the competition to minimize unnecessary tension. But then second, where do you cooperate? Well, you know, there's a long list. And let's be clear, you're not going to get Chinese cooperation on Korea or Afghanistan and Iran when you're treating them like an adversary over Taiwan, which is very important to them. But we need Chinese cooperation on North Korea to try and get North Korea to agree to freeze in this nuclear development. We need Chinese cooperation in post war Afghanistan. If we pull out, there's a vacuum and we need Chinese help in making sure the place doesn't fall apart and in aid programs to help promote stability. Why should they help us in Afghanistan? We need Chinese help in persuading Iran to return to the nuclear deal. Well, Iran's reaching out to Russia and China for support so that Iran can save the United States. We don't like the deal you're offering. And they are willing to resist US pressure because they have Chinese help. So you can't really put pressure on Iran to make an agreement without Chinese help. So from my perspective, the most important issues are North Korea, nuclear proliferation, Afghanistan and Iran nuclear proliferation. Now, many people might feel this climate change. My personal feeling is that this is not an area open to negotiation. China will make all the promises it wants but what drives the Chinese Communist Party is stability. They are afraid of unemployment. They are afraid of chaos. So they are afraid of slow economic growth. And they're never going to agree to reduce pollution because of an international agreement if their economy is slowing down, because that frightens them. And there's a pattern over time and the pattern is clear. When the economy slows down, Chinese pollution increases. When the economy is doing well, you see more efforts at environmental regulations. We should try and cooperate with China but we should have no illusion that it will be successful. History of the world suggests that in the issues of climate, inequality, child labor, unions, they all happen after countries get developed and wealthy so they can afford to spend money on other things. And China doesn't feel it's there yet. And second, with the Communist Party that's worried about being overthrown on a daily basis, it's hard for them to sacrifice growth or pollution. Thank you so much. Now we have a question from one of our high school students by Karin Dacosta and she asked, what, if anything, does China want to change about the current global economic system? How would that affect other economic players like ASEAN? China doesn't want to change anything. So if the other countries in the world that are saying to China, your policies, you are not complying with the rules. So when Mao died and Deng Xiaoping took over, if you didn't matter anymore, you didn't matter, you're a weak country.  So you broke all the rules and we even let you break the rules. We had special rules for you because you were developing country. You're now the second most powerful economy in the world and what you do matters. This is what happens with rising powers. All of a sudden the world cares. Chinese will say, how come America is so critical of China? Well, because you're a great power until we care. Well, now the China's impact is so great that the rest of the world is saying, you must change. And that's the problem. The issue is what happened to China doesn't change as a great power in economics. What does it do to global stability when as a great power it has its own rules and it doesn't want to change. China was a weak power and had its own rules. No one cared about China in the international economy. And that's what we're fighting over. China, you must change your domestic rules so they are the same as other advanced industrial powers. China for the most part is saying no. Well, what do you do about that? You start trade wars or you sort of find ways to negotiate and change China at the margins. You understand the world wants China to change and China's refusing to change. And of course, now that it's a great power it's insistence on keeping policies that are no longer appropriate will change the world if China does nothing. Because the world will respond to create a level playing field and that's the danger. If China's closed, other countries will close. If China's investment is biased and other countries won't let China in and then you have a potential for trade conflict. So the world will change not because China's changed but because other countries saying we need to protect ourselves against China because China doesn't play by the rules. Thank you. So in your opinion, how thoughtful was the previous administration's trade war policy and how the trade war was handled? Oh, forgive me for revealing my political bias but I'm not sure they gave much thought to their trade policy at all. There was a basically the administration did not like China because China was growing and Donald Trump had America first which means America must remain the greatest power in the world and every challenge to America must be resisted so American remain number one in the world. And so it's not all clear the administration did any analysis of what a trade war would mean for the relative distribution of power to the two countries. Would China rise faster because of a trade war or slower? I don't think they ever ran the numbers. If we put constraints on Chinese investment would that hurt China or hurt America more? I don't think they ran the numbers. And so the trade war was very badly waged because it hurt America more than it hurt China. China grew fast in the United States. So remember China retaliated with putting up their own tariffs. So American exports to China declined and that hurt American GDP and when did it hurt American GDP? During the COVID crisis, we were in a recession anyway. So it hurt the American economy when Chinese retaliation but China grew fast in the America and the gap continued to clothe. And technology is not clear. The long-term is good for the US. The trade deficit got bigger and bigger during the trade war. So it didn't narrow the trade deficit. So again, China says, when you want to negotiate a new trade agreement and then you're willing to take down your tariffs and the trade war and Chinese might say to America, we're no hurry to end the trade war. It might hurt China, but it's hurting America more. So that means the rise of China has happened even faster than before. And that's the irony of the Donald Trump policy is that China actually might like it. Thank you for your answer. Now we have a question from another student and she wants to ask, what is the biggest or most common mistake or misconception that American policy makers make in US-China relations in your opinion? I think one, there's a growing sense that China is preparing for war against Taiwan. And there's no evidence of that. But because Americans are soon nervous about the rise of China, have strong times becoming, they say, what will China do with all this power? They're getting so competent they may start a war. But that's not how countries think. We could, United States could have invaded Cuba a long time ago and defeated Cuba. But why, it was too dainty. It would have been a long war, a nasty war, expensive war. Why do that? So there's a sense that China is becoming more and more aggressive against Taiwan. But the second thing Americans don't do well, and no country does this well, is they don't understand the impact of American policy on China. America always sees itself as reactive and the other country is taking initiatives. But all countries think that way. We're a nice country. We're just, we want peace and cooperation. The other guys are always the bad guys. So are we provoking China by our Taiwan policy? No one asks that question. Are we provoking China with our naval activities in South China Sea? No one's asking that question. Are we provoking China with our human rights policy? No one's asking that question. It's all China's fault. And so the solution doesn't require America to change his policy. But you can't solve anything unless you mutually compromise. But the perspective is, it's America, it's China's fault, America's doing nothing wrong. And of course, from the Chinese perspective, they see many things America is doing to challenge China. And it's going to be hard to change Chinese behavior unless you acknowledge that and try and understand how you're undermining Chinese interests. Thank you. Now we have a question from another high school student, Alex, who asks, from the perspective of other smaller, less powerful East Asian nations, such as the Philippines, South Korea, Japan, et cetera, what should be their goals in the future to grow and increase regional security while potentially limiting China's growth and influence? Well, let's begin with the basics. There is nothing Singapore, Philippines, South Korea, Malaysia can do to limit China. Only another great power can constrain a great power. The small powers are going to find ways for protection. You put all that power in China, you put all that power in the United States. I mean, imagine we all think Canadians like Americans. Well, maybe they do, but they also live next to the most powerful country in the world and that makes them very nervous. And so they always want to find ways to be nice to us. And that's what happens in Southeast Asia or Northeast Asia with South Korea. You can't constrain China. You have to find ways to get along with China.  Now, part of that is because China, you don't want China treating you like an enemy and part of that's because they need to develop. And that means no country in the world today and compete in international economics without trading with China. It is the largest market in the world, the fastest growing market in the world. You want your economy to develop, you sell to China. You want your economy to develop, you invest in China. Every Southeast Asian country, every East Asian country knows that. So you would down the list, Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, South Korea, they all have more important number one trade relation with China, number two is United States.  And we need to remember, Americans will, you hear talk about how China's using its trade power to hurt other countries. Yes, it is. Well, welcome to the United States. United States is the sanctioned king of the world. We put sanctions on everyone. This is what great powers do. So you ask what mistakes America makes. We fail to see China in a comparative perspective. Is China using its power to get other countries to do what it wants? Of course it is. But is it acting in a particularly dangerous way? Well, let's see, has it killed anyone since 1979? No, that's 30 years, hasn't killed anyone. Started a war? No, attacked another country with its air force? No. Well, that sounds like the United States is the most dangerous country in the world, but we're killing people all the time in the Middle East. You don't see China's behavior as a great power in context of what other great powers did. What China's doing in East Asia is gunboat diplomacy. Well, you know, in the scheme of things, that's not too bad. You're not killing anyone. Thank you so much. So now we have a question that has a slightly different focus. This is more of a human rights question from one of our high school students. So if the Biden administration is attempting to apply pressure on China on human rights issues, then how come Biden calls the detaining of the Uruguay Muslims part of China's different norms? Say that again. Sure, I'll repeat this question again. So if the Biden administration is attempting to apply pressure on China about their human rights issues, then how come Biden has also called the practice of detaining Uruguay Muslims part of China's different norms? Oh, Uyghur Muslims, Uyghur. Uyghur, yes. I thought you said Uruguay, and I'm not sure why we're talking about Uruguay. Well, yeah. So, I mean, this is part of the larger problem. We have a problem in Xinjiang, of the detainment camps of Uyghurs. That's a big human rights problem, there's no question. But because of two things, the Biden administration's strong intention to show that they are going to stand up to China, so they use signals. We're going to resist the rise of China. We're going to balance China. Our allies can depend on us to resist China. You should lean toward America to balance China, and you can depend on us. And so they use human rights to show their willingness to challenge China. Second, we have domestic problems. You don't want to appear weak on China with the Republican Party. And so we call China's policy in Xinjiang genocide. Well, by the international legal system, it's not genocide. It just isn't, it's bad, but it's not genocide. So you can see we're already accusing China of something that the world community says it's not. The second, you would accuse China of genocide or hypothetically don't go to the Olympics. Don't expect any help on North Korea. Don't expect any help on Afghanistan or Iran. Don't expect any help on pandemics. Don't expect any help on anything. Because you're saying the government, you're saying Xi Jinping is a genocidal leader and you want his help. No, you can't call someone genocidal and ask and expect for cooperation. So again, we have this contradiction where you want to show your resolve because China is challenging the, with its power challenging American alliances and friendships and challenging America's role in the world. On the other hand, you need Chinese cooperation to achieve many of the things you want to achieve. And then trying to show your resolve, well, maybe you just can't get help in North Korea. Thank you so much. Well, Professor Ross, right now we still have many questions incoming and I know that earlier I have mentioned that we're supposed to move into breakout from sessions at 4.45, but could you stay here for longer to answer more? I have a problem I would be happy to, Jason. Thank you so much. So now we have another question from a high school student by Carrie. So she asked, you said that it is important for the Chinese economy to be thriving if there is any hope of the Chinese reducing carbon emissions and getting on board with climate change initiatives. Do you think that China can really be expected to join any international agreements on such issues that affect China's economy when foreign countries such as the United States are actively trying to hurt the Chinese economy? Well, understand why the Chinese like coal. They like coal because they own it. You don't have to import it. And all countries to the extent possible prefer to have their energy domestic. So if you depend on the Middle East for oil or electricity that makes you very nervous. So if, because Chinese have so much coal, they're going to make sure that most of their energy comes from coal so they can be self-reliant. Now, we need to be clear here. 92% of Chinese energy is domestically derived. About 70% is coal. They like it like that. Then another 20% is China's own oil, China's own natural gas, China's nuclear energy, China's solar, China's hydropower and dams. They like it like that. So China is only going to be eliminating coal production gradually as other sources of energy can replace it. Slowly, more hydro and of course there's no free lunch. We know that China is killing the rivers of Asia from dams. Well, what are you going to do? You want coal, you want hydro, right? Nuclear, well, people don't like nuclear. There's no easy answer to these things. But coal seems to be in many ways the worst. But Chinese are going to give up coal until they can replace it with something else. And that's never going to change. That's just a rule. Second, we need to understand that they could burn coal cleanly. Too large, isn't it good? But it's expensive. Burning coal to reduce emissions of particle emissions raises the cost of energy production by 15%. That's a lot. And second, it means because you are using energy to burn it cleanly, you have to burn 15% more coal. And where is that coal coming from? Chinese coal mines with horrible conditions and workers are dying every day working in coal mines. So, but they're not going to burn it cleanly because it's expensive and it would lead to more deaths than coal mines, as you. So China will agree to anything. But like every country in the world, they lie. They lie all the time. And their purpose out there is to make friends. And who made more friends? Donald Trump says, we're pulling out of the Paris Accord and we don't like you anyway, so goodbye. But China says, we love the climate accord and Paris Accord and we love it. We're going to buy it, but they really don't. Who made more friends? China did. So all countries lie and I don't, again, we're back to where we were. China will have a better climate policy when it's wealthy enough and it can make sacrifices to its economy. Thank you for your answer. We have another question from a high school student who asked, are there any parallels between the current US-China situation to the Cold War? And does the public's perception of China affect US policymaking? That's a very good question. And one that's part of our debates in America right now. We're looking forward to a new Cold War. And that has three things we must say, and I'll say it quickly. One, America has a short history. We think every great power conflict has to be a Cold War. No, that's just not true. Europe in the 19th century, all of these great powers and they traded and they had political exchanges and educational exchanges, they didn't have a Cold War. The US-Soviet Cold War was particularly unique in how bad the relationship was. Second, what made it bad was the big Soviet Army sitting on the border of Germany and Americans and Germans and French all worried that they'll start a war tomorrow and the Western Europe will be conquered by the Soviet Union. No one's worried about the Chinese conquering Asia. Then I'm gonna invade the Philippines or invade Singapore, invade Indonesia. There's all that watered across and why would they want to do that anyway? So the threat of the Chinese to conquer Asia is not equal to the Soviet threat to conquer Europe. So we're less scared. And when you're less scared, you don't need a Cold War. But then third, Soviet Union was largely responsible for the Cold War because it didn't want Americans coming in. It was afraid of capitalism, afraid of American investment, afraid of American trade, afraid of American students, afraid of American culture because it was a communist state wanting to change its society and worried about its control. Chinese are like that. So we have Donald Trump's trade war can be whatever he wants, but we still have a lot of trade with China. That's not going to end. But it's still gonna have a lot of investment in China. That's not gonna end. We don't have any ideological conflict. There's no ideology left in China. There's Xi Jinping's power. There's the Chinese Communist Party, but you can't say in China, we want to create a communist society. No one believes in that. So that's not there either. So we should understand that for all the rhetoric about a Cold War, this doesn't need to be a Cold War. And then second, it's not going to be a Cold War. People use that to mobilize anti-Chinese support to build the defense budget or to compete better. But in reality, it doesn't need to be and it will not be. Thank you. So going off of that question, another high school student asked, how should the United States employ an offshore balancing strategy and work with other countries in East Asia to check China's rights and advance its own interests in the region? Well, we talk about offshore balancing sometimes. We talk about having other countries take some of the responsibility. And if we were to do less, if you will, other countries would do more. Now, we've already said, there's nothing Singapore or Malaysia, the Philippines or South Korea are gonna do, right? I mean, South Korea has a population of 40 million people. They're gonna compete with 1.4 billion? No, South Korea is gonna find a way to accommodate China. So when people talk about offshore balancing, they usually say, if we were to do less, India, Russia and Japan would do more. No, this is simply a dream of Americans thinking that we don't have to, if we could do less and we still wouldn't have to worry about China. The fact is that India is a declining power. Why? Because its economy is growing much, much less than China is. So it's actually getting weaker compared to China. Its military is getting weaker compared to China. Its technology is getting weaker compared to China. So you can imagine if the United States feels challenged by China, India can't do anything about China. Russia is the same way. Russia's got a very weak Navy and is very worried about the Ukraine and NATO. There are no Russian troops, no Russian Navy, no Russian Air Force anywhere in the Russian Far East and Siberia. So what do they have to do? They gotta be nice to China. And Japan has been growing at 1% for the last 30 years. Technological innovation is very, very low. It's got a declining population and aging population, massive budget problems. And it's gonna balance China? No, it's already working as hard as it can to maintain its current capabilities. It's the United States with nobody. We balance China and no one balances China. Now that could be okay. You might wanna say China, you can have Asia. Why would you say that? Because between the United States and China is a huge Pacific Ocean to protect us. So we don't really have to worry. China is never gonna land in the United States because we have nuclear weapons. And third, the United States can be secure because we control the Western Hemisphere. And that's very nice to control the Western Hemisphere. One big American sphere of influence. Do we need to be in Asia too? That's something worth discussing. Thank you. So a bit of a topic transition. One of our high school students wants to know, do you anticipate that a sustainable resolution to the Taiwan Strait conflict will be reached in the near future? And what path would you propose for a successful conflict resolution when it seems that all parties involved are unwilling to change their stance on this issue? Thank you. I believe a resolution is close to impossible. Let's begin with the reality. The people in Taiwan do not like the Chinese Communist Party. The people in Taiwan do not like China. And the people in Taiwan do not want to give up what they have and become a province of China, period. So how would the mainland go about changing that? Nothing the mainland could do could ever change that. They're like who they are. So how would they ever change that? They'd have to invade them. And that would be very dangerous for the mainland. Suppose it became a long war. Well, then could the Communist Party survive? Suppose it became a long war. How many planes would they lose? Well, then you are going to waste all those planes fighting Taiwan. And the next thing you know, the Americans are number one again, very dangerous. So the issue is not to resolve the problem because Taiwan will never say they're part of Communist China. And the mainland will never go to war to make them. So what you need to do is try and avoid a situation where the mainland, the mainland that we sometimes we will say in English is the 600 pound gorilla in the room. We don't like them. We think they're wrong. We think that they should allow Taiwan to have independence, but it doesn't matter what we think. They're the 600 pound gorilla in the room and you've got to deal with that reality because in the 600 pound gorilla gets angry, we're all dead. So the challenge is for Taiwan and the United States to find a way to give Taiwan security without provoking the mainland. Now, in reality, it's not hard. All Taiwan said in the past is Taiwan is part of China. Didn't say mainland, didn't say Communist China, didn't say the People's Republic of China. They said Taiwan is part of China. And that China is the Republic of China, meaning Taiwan. And then we can go on buying weapons from the United States and cooperating with China on trade. What China is worried about is maybe the leadership on Taiwan will declare independence and independence means war. So what Taiwan has to avoid and Americans have to avoid is giving the mainland the impression that this could lead to war because Taiwan declares independence. You should be able to do two things at once, protect Taiwan, avoid it becoming part of the mainland and simultaneously not provoking the mainland by making them worry that Taiwan could declare independence. We haven't seen that for the last four years. Taiwan has been moving closer to independence very, very slowly. So there's no threat of independence. But the mainland will say you're moving in the wrong direction, we worry, you American support's growing.  And next thing you know, we're in war. So America needs to constrain its support for Taiwan so the mainland doesn't worry. And Taiwan needs to signal the mainland that it's not gonna declare independence because Taiwan's part of the mainland, not part of the PRC, part of the mainland. And then we can reduce the tension, maximize trade. Remember, no one can ever develop any stage without trading with China. The Taiwan can maximize its trade with the mainland and avoid heightened tension. Thank you. Now we have a question from a high school student about the BRI. So what do you think the implications of the BRI will be for the participating nations? Does this think that it will lead these nations into a larger debt trap or may it truly be beneficial for those countries? So the term debt trap has become quite popular. And it began from a journalist, I believe, in India. And then got picked up by an American journalist writing, I believe, for the New York Times. And next thing you know, we have a new image of China using aid for debt. And the classic case is Sri Lanka. But I would recommend to everyone in the room to read the recent article in the Atlantic magazine on China and Sri Lanka. And the story is just the opposite. When Sri Lanka was having trouble paying its debt, the mainland said, well, let's make it easier for you to pay the debt. And two, they actually didn't take control over the port because they couldn't pay the debt. So the myth has developed about debt traps. When Malaysia couldn't pay the debt, the mainland said, let's renegotiate. The mainland has actually worked with the International Monetary Fund to help countries who are in financial crisis because of COVID to reschedule their debts rather than making them pay or taking control of their assets. So in that respect, the mainland has not been as evil as countries say. Second, countries need infrastructure. The mainland is going out there and saying, we will give you loans, build trains and railways and pipelines and airports and seaports. What do you think? And the world says, thank you, we need infrastructure. So Italy's building infrastructure from Chinese BRI. The Greeks are building it. Rotterdam has taken funding. Malaysia's taken funding. Philippines has taken funding because the countries need infrastructure is good for investment. It's good for development. So I mean, there were issues. China has no intention of China's willing to be corrupt and help leaders. China's willing to overlook environmental issues or maybe child labor. That's those are real issues. And then you have to ask yourself, there's no such thing as an easy answer to anything. Is it better for these countries to not care about the environment, not care about child labor, get the bridges built so they can increase their economic growth and that will be the surest way to end child labor through economic growth. I don't know, but these are worth debating. But for the most part, I don't see much of a problem with the BRI in terms of global norms. Remember, it's an aid policy. We can't get too upset about an aid policy. No one ever called American foreign aid a critical element in global war and peace. It's an aid policy. Again, you asked me earlier what American mistakes make about China to see the BRI is this great Chinese strategic plot. Come on now. It's a, they're giving loans for building bridges. Everything China does is a plot to take over the world. No, it's an aid policy. Thank you. But just to build off of that, so how can we ensure that the BRI and other related projects meet environmental goals, especially within the Asian nations who are mostly impacted by climate change? Well, these are bilaterally negotiated agreements. If the Philippines wants a Chinese assistance that is environmental, the sustainable environment, sustainable policy, let them negotiate with China. If the Malaysians want an environmentally sustainable investment, let them negotiate that with China. If Ethiopia says we don't care about environmental sustainability, Chinese say fine, we'll build the bridge.  And it's also up to Ethiopia to decide what they want. Now, having said that, we should understand that the Asian infrastructure bank, Asian infrastructure investment bank has worked closely with the Asian Development Bank that has Japanese leadership and has worked closely with the World Bank in joint projects so that this is not a pariah state and outlier challenging the World Bank, challenging the Asian Development Bank. They have hundreds of joint projects they do. There are World Bank officials who retired are now working in senior positions at the infrastructure investment bank because China wants their wisdom in how to run these banks. Is this a Chinese bank? Yes, is it gonna serve Chinese interests? You bet it will. The same way the World Bank served American interests because the United States ran the World Bank for 50 years after World War II. Is it gonna serve Chinese interests? You bet it will. But to what extent is it going to serve other countries' interests too? That's the question you have to ask. Thank you. Now we'll go to a different topic. One of the high school students asked, how should the United States approach the growing issue of intellectual properties by China without greatly worsening its relationship with China or not taking a hard enough stance? Very difficult problem. First, two problems. Two problems. First, China doesn't have a legal system. Let's be clear about that. Very few courts, very few lawyers, very few accountants who can look at the books, very, I mean, very few lawyers who are capable of defending and prosecuting. Judges don't understand these issues. People don't solve problems in Chinese society by going to court. That's not how it's done. So that the ability of a legal system to enforce intellectual property rights does not exist.  They don't have, they do one thing. They repress people from expressing their individual opinions on human rights. Other than that, they have no power whatsoever because they're weak governments, minimal bureaucracy, minimal regulations. So the Chinese legal system is not equipped to enforce an intellectual property rights system. So you can steal intellectual property rights and no one will do anything about it because a legal system is not going to go after you. Second, we have to recognize the reality at the local level that the number one objective of the local level officials is development of their local industries. So some guy is going to steal IPR, put it in their factory, hire 200, 300, 500 local people and the local party officials gonna say you did a bad thing, never gonna happen. Cause he just, or she just raised the GDP of that small, the economy of that small county by a lot. And that's the most important thing for that party member to get promoted. What do we call that? We call that corruption. You have the party member working hand in hand with the owner of the factory to make sure that if there's a lawsuit, the judge in the local court doesn't rule against the factory owner. And what can the Beijing do about it? Not much because it has very weak control over local officials who are trying to improve the economy. We think, how can they be a weak government? Look how oppressive they are. Of course they are because one, there's a common interest in local officials and putting people in jail will challenge the government. So they're happy to do it anyway. And two, you wanna please Xi Jinping. Xi Jinping has said stability is the number one issue. And how do you keep stability? You put people to work. So if China lacks the ability to do something about it, how important is it for you to make an issue of a new US-China relations when you are not going to succeed, period? And yet if you put sanctions and everything else, they will retaliate.  Now, in the past, what have we done? We signed great agreements and never get carried out. And we knew they would never get carried out, but we wanted to sign an agreement so we could move beyond this issue of conflict because we knew it was fruitless and try and cooperate elsewhere. So you wanna be cynical, reach an agreement with China and intellectual property rights. No, they'll never enforce it. But you can tell the business community what a great agreement we signed. You can tell Congress what a great agreement we signed and that will make US-China cooperation elsewhere better but no progress on intellectual property rights. Depends on how cynical you wanna be. Thank you. Now we have a question that asked. So you had said that Russia was once very powerful. So how has the rise in China changed the dynamics between US and Russia? So now does the US not care about Russia anymore because China is more powerful? Well, again, the United States has a domestic politics problem. Russia interferes in our election. They seem to be a bully around Europe. And so we consider the Russians a threat. Now, if you are analytical about these things and not political, you say, well, how big is their navy? Not big, well, they can't be a threat. How big is their air force? Not big, can't be a threat. How big is their economy? It's a midget economy. It's the size of Spain. Can't be a threat. So what are the Russians doing? They're challenging us in areas where we really don't want to fight a war. So we're not really stopping them. But on the other hand, they're acting belligerent. And so we see this belligerent activity. And if you read the defense reports, they're all, they're finally being honest and they say out of the Pentagon, China's number one threat. And they actually, I think the last one ranked the Soviet, Russia is equivalent to Iran. So it's just not that big a deal. Iran's not a big deal. So that means two things. It means that many people would feel Donald Trump had the right ideas and wrong methods. We gotta get out of Europe. The United States cannot afford to take the responsibility on and defending Europe against Russia. When our budget deficit's off the chart or defense budget's off the chart, our Navy is collapsing before our eyes and China's rising. We can't do both theaters at once. And second, because Russia's weak, the Europeans can do it themselves. They don't need us. So that's the transition you're seeing is the United States trying to find a way to get out of Europe in the context of which the Europeans don't need our help. And how do you get the Europeans to do more? You get out of Europe. I will give Donald Trump, I won't name that will not be mentioned. I'll mention the former guy and give him some credit. He's so scared of the Europeans that we were leaving tomorrow that they started spending more in defense. They are now spending more in defense because they don't trust us for two reasons. One, three reasons. They can see us declining. Two, they know we care more about China. And three, they're afraid we might leave. So that's where we're going because of Russian weakness. But having said that, we will never be able to get the Russians to be our friends against China because the Russian Far East in Siberia is so seven million people in the entire Russian Far East compared to 400 million Chinese just south of the border. So Russia in the Far East is no different than South Korea, the Philippines. They better damn well be nice to China or the West they got a problem. And I don't care what American policy they got to be nice to China. Thank you. I think this will be our last question for today. Thank you. So a high school student asked, in a hypothetical absence of the COVID pandemic, how do you think U.S-China relations would have developed over the past year and how might the outlook change with the new Biden administration? I don't think COVID made a big difference because first the prior administration and now the Biden administration was using everything possible to mobilize opinion for containing China. So what we did on the controversy over COVID didn't reflect the importance of COVID. It reflected American efforts to use COVID as part of our overall strategy. COVID didn't drive anything. American policy drove our policy on COVID. Now we can see that because we're not going to change. COVID is history. This come from a wet market in Wuhan. Did it come from a Chinese lab? I have no idea. I assume it came from wet market. But I don't really care. The issue is what do we do now to protect lives? And I think we can all agree that that should be the priority instead of blaming China for what happened in the past. But the Biden administration continues to blame China for what happened in the past because they know that saving lives is the most important thing going forward. They know that cooperation and trying to open up China in the future is more important but they're going to use COVID to rally public opinion against China around the world. Same way they call China genocidal. Is it genocidal? Is it not? But it's a word that can be used to arouse hostility toward China and cooperation in the United States. So we would be where we are today in US-China relations regardless of COVID because we were going to use something else to mobilize opinion against China. In some respects it's made it worse because China has become quite a lot more confident. They think America is declining faster than ever and the future is China's. Why look how badly America handled COVID? Look how badly American economy did toward COVID. Look how well China did. China's clearly got a better government, better economy. So if anything COVID it was better for China they think than the United States but in terms of policy, now it didn't change much. Thank you so much Professor Ross for your lecture and your answers to all the questions. Now we will adjourn today's session and I want to thank all the high school students for being here today. And I hope that the lecture and Q&A time are intellectually stimulating in preparation for tomorrow's inquiry simulation. Once again, I just want to thank everyone for being here today. Thank you, Jason, Gwendolyn, Anastasia. Thank you very much. Pleasure to be here. Bye-bye. Bye.


You guys ready? I'll adjust, you know, coming inside.  Yeah, when you come inside, I actually get us ready for tomorrow. Because when you, normally you've got two fields to do offense and defense. And then you come inside, and the same thing will be down there to Miami. We'll have to work our individual where you split the field up 50-50-0 and D. So it's actually a good little practice for us. But you always got to be able to adjust. We would have gone outside if it hadn't been too bad, but Brian Boydner, our equipment guy, is kind of getting soft in his old age. And so he didn't want to, he was worried about all the equipment and packing everything up, the footballs, and things being wet. But it was good work. Obviously, if it's really bad weather, we'll come inside. Well, yeah. Well, certainly any time, obviously he's rehabbing in the off season, he's going to be a little further behind than the other guys. And so we've got to be smart how we bring him along. So that's why you saw his workload last week. It should increase this week. But he's coming along. He's doing everything that we were asking to do. And he's done a nice job of throwing at him. This will be a good test for him down in Miami. But the same thing with Spriggs. And then you get Mayfield. And so Jaylen will work at some guard. And then if the numbers are depending on the rep counts, now it's going, he may have to swing back out to right. But that's why we worked in there to protect ourselves and kind of mix and match. Well, like all of our players, you hope to get the best out of them. All these guys, they want to improve. We want them to be the best versions of themselves. That's all we can ask them. I'm not going to put any kind of label that he needs to do this or that. We just need to get him as the best Kaila McGarry as we possibly can. Right. You know, here's the thing. There's nothing long-term with Marlon. It's trying to be smart, being proactive. And so I just wouldn't, it won't be a long-term thing. I won't anticipate him going down in Miami. But I'm not concerned that it's long-term. But again, I don't want to predict that things can happen. But that's the plan right now. Well, when you go down there, you agree on certain terms. So it's a lot like the practice where it's a little more controlled environment where we won't tackle. It'll be a thought environment. Obviously, we won't make the quarterbacks live. So you somewhat can control that. Now, things have happened on the football field. You guys have all been around practices that you can't prevent everything. But it's a little bit more controlled. You can kind of script the situations you want to work. So you get some red zone work. You go down there and script some two-minute stuff. You get all the situational third down. It just helps you control it. And you get more shots at it than you would in a game. I mean, obviously, if things go bad, you may only get one shot down in the red zone. You may only get one field goal attempt. A few punts depending. So that's where it's really important because you can't control all those situations. Yeah, he's a guy that's played it live in the full snaps. So you actually get a decent evaluation on him. And we had guys that have some familiarity with him on the staff and in the scouting side. So we brought him in here. And like a lot of these free agents, it's a balance because the cap number went down. And so it was an interesting year, especially a lot of guys in that. And you see probably a lot of league, a lot of guys signed one-year deals. And so we were fortunate we were able to sign some of the guys we did. And he's been in there and competing. And we'd like what he's shown us so far. Well, if you want to be multiple, it lets you versatility is the key. And so there'll be times where we can get creative because of those guys' skill sets. You may see three of those guys on the field at the same time. You could see four. You could see two. How do we mix and match? We feel like guys that'll be dressed will all have a role on the defense on game day. And obviously the ones that aren't regular starters, they need to help Marquis and Hoff on fourth down in a special teams game. But it has been. What I've been pleased with is I thought the, you know, two inside guys of rookies that did a nice job that night were Earl and Dorian. And we'll see if they can go down there against a different scheme, a different environment down to Miami and then Saturday night will be big for them again. You gonna give me a talk about scheme?  Yes. Yeah. We value that. Deon's had a good camp. All we ever tried to do was to educate our guys and let them make their own choices. Like I said, I'm not a pandering politician. We try to give them the information, told them to research it themselves. And that's pretty it. I mean, it's really about those guys, you know, and that's the thing that we didn't try to push or anything like that. We just gave them the facts, educate yourself. And those guys made obviously the choices they made. Well, it's certainly that, you know, there was a protocols that are in place. If you're unvaccinated, you're all you're essentially using last year's protocols. And then if you are vaccinated, the protocols have changed a little bit.  Yeah, certainly that would, that will benefit us. Oh, it'll be this week. Like this week, we got to get more carries.  We were too far behind the sticks. Didn't get enough runs called. Like I said, that was the big picture of this precinct. There's a lot of different approaches you can take. You can go in there and try to scheme things up and look pretty to trick somebody or sit here and say, hey, we're going to get an apples and apples evaluation. And we got to execute better. But I really, I didn't think that was a fair assessment of the running backs with Caleb or Hawk or Foreman. We just didn't get enough carries. I mean, you were in a lot of second and long kind of forced a couple of runs just to get a couple in there. So we had to do a better job staying on track so we can get an evaluation of him running. And then obviously third down will be critical in the past game protection wise and what they can do free release in front of the backfield. What's all those guys? I think that's our job as coaches is to push them. You know, I think been around too many is they can't do this. And you know, people have, you know, I respect their opinion, but until we see them do it, okay, then lesson learned. Okay, you're right. He may not be able to do this in any player we have skill wise. Like I said, I mean, you go in there and a lot of these guys, I think we have a pretty versatile group.  I think he's proven he can't, can't run the go routes, but not to say we won't try maybe in the red zone. But the rest of those guys, we just try to push them and see what they can do, what they can handle. So we're not wishing and hoping we scheme something up, you know, week three or four and they've never run it before. Does that help? Yeah. Mm-hmm, sure. Absolutely. Absolutely. Because you've been, I've been a part of these things where you try a lot of different things in the week and then it's just the program's philosophy, what you want to do during that preceding game. You would hope that you've got enough good work and which, which I anticipate and so does Miami, but we'll get that Wednesday and Thursday and then Miami's going to do whatever they feel is best for their team for Saturday night and we'll do what we think is best, but again, different approaches, but yes, I think you'll get, we'll get a ton out of these practices. So I know the first part. I know, I know. How does that affect your rep count in terms of what he Yeah. Yeah, that's a fine line. If we thought with some of those veterans that we anticipate that have done a good job and camp, that's the only way to get a fair shot at those other guys and then at some point we need to see, you know, we got to make a decision. We need to see Mike Ron in the preseason and same with CP, you know, with some of those vets. If we feel good about them, that's all right. Well, here's a fair like we can't, we're not going to be able to get all six running backs, 10 plus carries. So that's, that's kind of the decision. You know, see how this week goes and evaluate other guys are doing or who needs to get carried Saturday night. Yeah, you value that. And then you got to, we got to sit down and say, all right, what's best for this team? Like if we say, all right, we, is that a good camp? Does he need it? And everybody's different. Like I've coached a lot of guys. Hey, they may, I'll use Delaney Walker, for example. You know, he always wanted to get a couple of snaps in the field. There's other guys that know I'm good.  And there's also, you know, I wasn't in the, the top decision making, but a lot of that stuff that thought went into it. And a lot of that will be the same thing with, with Matt. So again, I don't think any two guys have ever coached have been exactly the same. You do appreciate when the guys are honest and I always did appreciate about a guy like Delaney. Appreciate it. Thank y'all.


Welcome to the Hindi News Analysis by Shankar Ayes Academy. The list of topics chosen for today's discussion along with the page numbers is given here for your reference. Let us start today's news analysis. Let us take up this comment column which talks about issues associated with homogenizing of Assamese nationalism. We shall also see the importance of protection and promotion of linguistic diversity in this analysis. So the relevant syllabus for this discussion is given here for your reference. So when we say the homogenizing or homogenization, it means making everything uniform or similar by removing the diversities. For example, in India we have some hundreds of languages. Suppose government mandates that every citizen should speak only in one language and not allowed to speak other languages. It means we are bringing some kind of uniformity, which is also called homogenizing or homogenization. So the debate on homogenized Assamese nationalism is triggered by two events. First one, the enactment of Assamese Language Learning Act of 2020. If you see, this act is aimed to provide and ensure learning of Assamese as one of the language in all schools in Assam. However, a few areas are excluded from this act like Sixth Schedule Areas, Bodo Schools and Barak Valley Areas. In these excluded areas, Bengali, Bodo and other indigenous languages are prominently spoken and so they have to be given priority. And coming back to this Assamese Language Learning Act of 2020. It mandates that Assamese should be taught as a compulsory language from nursery to 10th standard from next academic year, that is 2021. And the second one, the Assamese Home Minister announced that the government is considering a one more legislation to make only those who learned Assamese till their matriculation will be eligible for government jobs in Assam. So one event mandating Assamese Language in schools and second one only those who learned Assamese till their matriculation suitable for government jobs. So what are the reasons for bringing these steps? So the answer is danger to Assamese Language. As said by author, the primary reason here is danger from Bengali speaking communities in Assam. And to support this view, statistical data is provided by the government. So what happened was the number of Assamese speakers as per 2011 census reduced to 48.38% from 60.89% in 1971. So this significant reduction in Assamese speaking population is threatening the Assamese culture as well as Assamese language in the state of Assam. So government has come up with these two measures to conserve and protect the Assamese language. But here the problem is the state government by protecting only one regional language, it failed to offer same protection to other indigenous languages. By doing so, the other indigenous languages spoken in the same region by other communities are treated as trivial or not so important. In addition, this eliminates the protection and promotion of linguistic diversity in Assam. So here what happens is this move which is non-inclusive is creating a homogenized Assamese nationalism. To understand even better we shall see what is the ground reality of indigenous tribal population in Assam. See as we all know the Northeastern states are known for many diversities. For example, there are many tribes like Missing, Diori, Rabba, Gero, etc. as you can see here. So the decision of Assam government to protect only Assamese language is going to affect the other indigenous languages spoken by these tribes. So other notes that the government failed to recognize the threat posed by these measures on other indigenous languages. If you see the tribal languages of Assam are already on a state of decline which is evident from these data. See it is clearly reflecting that the decadal increase in number of speakers has significantly reduced from 2001 census to 2011 census. So because of this reason for a very long time tribal communities in Assam have been demanding linguistic and territorial protection. But instead of promoting all the languages inclusively the state government is protecting only one language that is Assamese. Such promotion may lead to linguistic hierarchy and homogenization in the region. Such homogenization becomes a crucial element for constructing and stabilizing the regional political economic leadership. See we all know that there is widespread wedge or differences between indigenous Assam population and migrated Bengali population in Assam. And it is often alleged and accused that the native population are becoming minority in their own state because of this migrant population. So by doing such homogenization the government can ensure the majority of indigenous population in the state. This is because the linguistic and cultural heritage of these marginalized tribal communities is not recognized by the state and dominant communities. So the dominant communities as well as state feel that all the other languages other than Assamese are trivial or not so important. So this is why the author feels Assamist nationalism is a narrow minded and rarely inclusive. Interestingly author also recollect one incident where Assamist nationalism included even marginal communities as well. Here author is talking about the protest during Anti-Citizenship Amendment Act. So what happened was during the protest against the CAA a new definition of Assamist indigenous emerged. So the new definition includes all the tribal as well as non-Assamist communities. This definition is mostly based on the domicile rather than language alone. So simply we can say like this. So when protesting against citizenship amendment act all the indigenous population it means all the people belonging to different languages, different cultures, different tribes came together and represented the Assam. This is what author says as Assamist nationalism was inclusive during anti-CAA protests. These people together raised for protection of indigenous land, culture and languages. But unfortunately the state government is now taking a different view of Assamist nationalism which protects only Assamist language and leaves all other diversity of languages present in Assam. Here author fears that these laws will only increase marginalization of different communities present in Assam. So by mandating Assamist language it gives a message that even if you are not learning your own language you should definitely learn Assamist. So automatically the importance of Assamist language will grow at the expense of all other indigenous languages in Assam. So while concluding author says that the progressive sections in Assam should assert the inclusive ethos. That means the spirit of culture and community of Assam. When we say spirit of culture and community of Assam it includes all the native indigenous populations and their culture. So these progressive sections have to protect and promote the linguistic diversity of Assam as mandated by article 29 of Indian constitution. So according to article 29 any section of citizens having a distinct language, script or culture have the right to conserve it. Dear viewers here note that not just Indian constitution but also international and other instruments advocate for protection and promotion of linguistic diversity. See if you remember we talked about different initiatives for conservation of linguistic diversity in our target UPSC films 2020 series. See we talked about scheme for protection and preservation of endangered languages that is SPPEL. This scheme was set up by ministry of human resource development and is monitored by central institute of Indian languages. The scheme's only objective is to document and archive the countries languages which have become endangered are likely to be endangered. Here endangered language means which are no longer being encouraged to be used or which are not transferred to younger generation. See this possibility can be seen in Assam case which we discussed just now. Since except Assamese other languages are not being encouraged by Assam government. And one more initiative is Ulu or Uelu Proclamation. This proclamation was made by UNESCO in 2018 at Changsha of China. This proclamation recognizes that the protection and promotion of linguistic diversity is crucial to the achievement of sustainable development goals. And it says that to achieve this proactive accountable and measurable participation of all sectors of international community is required. And also know that the 2019 was proclaimed as international year of indigenous languages by United Nations. So this proclamation was done in order to raise awareness of indigenous languages. So when an year is proclaimed as international year of something the mechanism is dedicated to raise awareness of a topic of global interest. By doing so it mobilizes different players across the world for coordinated action. So dear viewers this is how you have to enrich your answer writing by taking out examples from different sections. If you haven't watched our target UPSC Prelims 2020 series please watch those videos as they are going to be very helpful for your Prelims 2020. So this is all about this news article where we have discussed a lot of things for conservation of linguistic diversity. Let us move on to next news article. Let us take up this oped article with reference to reforming India's digital policy. This oped article is written by former assistant US Trade Representative for South and Central Asia. In this article the author links the India's digital policy is the factor of attracting foreign direct investment in digital services. So before going to discussion the relevant syllabus for this discussion is given here for your reference. Firstly the author says that even though pandemic is continuing its impact at the global level countries are trying to come back to normal state. This is mainly to come out of contracting growth rates or reducing growth rates and to boost economic growth. When manufacturing sector one way to boost economic growth is by attracting foreign direct investment. So when a lot of investment comes to India it helps in improving the manufacturing sector and consequently the growth rate of India will improve. So because of this reason there is a huge competition among countries to attract foreign direct investment. Though many countries are expecting a lot of foreign direct investment the reality is quite opposite. It means the quantum or share of foreign direct investment is falling amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. This was even echoed by World Investment Report of 2020. The report which was released by UN Conference on Trade and Development that is UNCTAD mentions that global FDI flows are to decrease up to 40% in 2020. And particularly the foreign direct investment flows coming to developing countries in Asia are going to see a decline by 45% in 2020. So compared to developed countries the developing countries are going to lose an additional 5% of FDIs. So in this scenario the author states that there is one sector which can bring foreign investors despite the trend of falling FDIs across the world. According to the author that one sector which can attract huge FDIs is digital services. Here the term digital services refers to electronic delivery of information including both data and content across multiple platforms and devices like web or mobile. So in digital service the service delivery to the customer is only through online channel. For example eBooks, cloud based software, websites, music streaming apps, even the games like PUBG. So these services are delivered through online channel hence the name digital services. You can even talk about the UPSC prelims examination application where entire process is done through an online form filling. So in this context author notes that investments in digital services continue to flow at record levels globally despite the ongoing pandemic. And author also observes that India has a huge potential to attract such investments. This is mainly because India has a huge and increasingly digitized population. In the recent days we also saw many innovative startups coming in India to provide digital services. For example many Indian apps were developed in a very short span to rival the TikTok. But these startups are in need of foreign investments to grow and to boost their capacity. So the foreign direct investment in these services can be a huge boon or a very big incentive to the startups and other entities which are offering digital services. So if these startups and entities are provided with much needed investments in course of time they may have the potential to export these services as well. Even though India is offering a very good market or a very big market for investments there is one factor which is holding back the foreign investors. It is the digital policy of government of India. So here author outlines three pending measures with reference to the digital policy of Indian government. The first one with reference to e-commerce when we say e-commerce you can think of lip-cart and a zone etc. Third in e-commerce the existing frameworks are not stable and in every year we are seeing some modifications. As a result there is some uncertainty with respect to the e-commerce policy. So because of this uncertainty the foreign investors are worried to invest in India. And the second factor is with reference to policy on protection of personal data. So in this regard we know that in December 2019 government introduced the personal data protection bill of 2019. This bill was introduced in Lok Sabha and later it was referred to Standing Committee. Still the bill has not yet materialized into an enforceable legislation. On the other hand if you notice the Reserve Bank has come up with strict data localization measures for digital transactions. One side the protection bill is pending on the other side RBI has come up with strict measures to enforce data localization. So this unpredictability or uncertainty is holding back the investors to invest in India. The third factor is foreign investors are expecting some amendments to Information Technology Act of 2000. If you recollect we talked about this IT Act yesterday in our discussion regarding the ban of 59 apps by government of India. So the foreign investors are expecting some amendments to this act to facilitate digital participation and in digital investments. So according to author the foreign investors are closely following these areas to decide investing in India particularly in digital services. So in all these areas there is some uncertainty or unpredictability whether these changes will be completed or implemented. So from government side these aspects are to be considered to attract foreign investment without compromising India's interests. Finally author also talks about one more uncertainty as he is talking about India-US trade relationship. Though India and US have come strategically very close in the recent years but the trade relationship between two countries is uncertain. We have seen how US excluded India from GSP and how India replied by increasing taxes or import duties on American products. So the frequent setbacks between the both countries in form of new restrictions, new barriers and opposing statements from political leadership are causing an uncertainty in the trade relations of both the countries. Particularly coming to the sector of digital services there are two things to note about USA. First one India and US are yet to conclude negotiation on a bilateral trade agreement to address some digital service issues. And second US has initiated a review on India under Trade Act. So under this trade act America is reviewing the digital services taxes levied by India on non-resident commercial entities. This levy is called as equalization levy and is covered under Finance Act of 2016. So what is this equalization levy? See this levy is applicable on payments made for specified services to non-resident service providers. Under this an Indian carrying out business with non-resident foreign firm will deduct specified amount from the payment to be made to the foreign firm. This amount deducted will be paid to Indian government. So this equalization levy is considered as a trade barrier by US. So US is expecting a change in policy in this area as well. With this we come to the end of analysis of this news article. In this analysis we talked about prospects in FDI amidst pandemic. Then we saw the potential of India in attracting FDI in digital services. Then we saw the factors considered by the foreign investors to invest in India. The displayed practice question will be discussed at the end of session. Now let us move on to the next news article. Next let us take up this news article which mentions Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts or in short IGNCGA. The news article states that the Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts is planning to highlight the work of artists who have been entertaining and boosting the public's morale during COVID-19 pandemic. In this context let us discuss IGNCA in brief. In prelims point of view we shall also discuss Sahitya Academy, Sangit Natak Academy as well as Lalit Kala Academy. The relevant syllabus for this discussion is highlighted here for your reference. First let us start with Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts. If you see this body was established in 1987 in the memory of former Prime Minister Srimati Indira Gandhi. This is an autonomous body set up under Ministry of Culture. And talking about its mandate, IGNCA is concerned with research, academic pursuit and dissemination in the field of arts. When we say arts here it includes a wide range of subjects from archaeology to anthropology and from the visual to performing arts. Some of the aims and objectives of this body are given here for your reference. Please have a look over them. For upcoming primes 2020 we shall also discuss a few bodies which are under Ministry of Culture. The three bodies we are going to discuss here is Sahitya Academy, Sangit Natak Academy and Lalit Kala Academy. As you can see in this tabular column Sahitya Academy was set up in 1954, Sangit Academy in 1952 and Lalit Kala Academy in 1954. And these three bodies are registered as a society under Society's Registration Act of 1860. And these three bodies are also autonomous organisations under Ministry of Culture. As we just discussed Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts is also an autonomous body under Ministry of Culture. And talking about Sahitya Academy it is national organisation to work actively for the development of Indian letters. Here we mean Literature. And coming to Sangit Natak Academy know that it is apex body of performing arts in the country and preserves and promotes the vast intangible heritage of India's diverse culture. And if you see the Lalit Kala Academy is concerned with promotion of visual arts in the country. And talking about awards given by Sahitya Academy, see every year Sahitya Academy gives 24 awards to literary works in the languages it has recognised. These awards are called Sahitya Academy Awards. And these awards are given in languages recognised by Sahitya Academy which are 22 scheduled languages under 8th schedule of constitution as well as English and Rajasthani. So it means 22 languages which are under 8th schedule plus 2 languages which are English and Rajasthani. Total 24 languages. Also note that along with these 24 awards an equal number of awards to literary translation from and into these languages are given every year. So 24 awards for new literature as well as 24 awards for translation works. But if you see India is home to hundreds of languages and dialects. So giving awards in these 24 languages is not sufficient. So Academy set up Basha Samman Award in the year 1996. This award is given to writers, callers, editors etc. who have made considerable contribution to the propagation, modernisation or enrichment of languages concerned. So this Basha Samman Award is generally given to the literary works in the languages other than the 24 languages recognised by the Sahitya Academy. And coming to Sangit Natak Academy, note that this is nodal centre for co-ordinating India's nominations for various lists developing and maintaining the national inventory of intangible cultural heritage along with UNESCO. We know that UNESCO recognises intangible cultural heritage. And in this regard Sangit Natak Academy is the nodal centre for co-ordinating India's nominations to UNESCO. And talking about Lalit Kala Academy, it organises national exhibition of art and present awards to the works of art of excellence both in terms of material application as well as aesthetic appeal. And these awards are called Lalit Kala Academy Awards. So this is all about three different bodies which are under Ministry of Culture. In addition note that there is one more body called National School of Drama under Ministry of Culture. This body was initially set up by Sangit Natak Academy as one of its constituent units in 1959. But in 1975 this National School of Drama became an independent entity and was registered as an autonomous organisation under Society's Registration Act of 1860. As we already said this body is under Ministry of Culture, Government of India. So all these four bodies, Sahitya Academy, Sangit Natak Academy, Lalit Kala Academy as well as National School of Drama, all are registered under Society's Registration Act of 1860 and are autonomous bodies under Ministry of Culture. These small details are very relevant in film's point of view. So this is all about this news article discussion. Let us move on to next news article. Let us take up this question which is based on this news article. This news article appeared in today's business page and talks about Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index that is PMI. The news article states that the PMI increased to 47.2 in the month of June from May. But it is still below the 50 point mark as you can see in this graph. So what is this PMI or Purchasing Managers Index? See this PMI is a survey based economic indicator designed to provide a timely insight into business conditions. It is widely used to anticipate changing economic trends in official data such as GDP. In addition know that it is also used as an alternative measure to official data about economic performance and business conditions in economy. So simply we can say like this it is a business indicator which reflects the health of economic sector. As you can see in this graph India's PMI is currently less than 50. So what does it mean? Anything below 50 denotes contraction and the figure above 50 denotes expansion in business activity. So if the value is more than 50 it is a positive trend and if it is less than 50 it is a negative trend. This index is compiled unpublished globally by a company called IHS market. And as of now this index is produced for more than 40 economists worldwide. Initially this PMI was compiled only for manufacturing sector. Now it is even extended to other sectors like services, construction and retail. And this index is the weighted average of 5 sub-indices which are new orders, output, employment, suppliers, delivery time and finally inventories of goods purchases. By looking into these 5 sub-indices the PMI shows the status of economy. So now the current manufacturing PMI report noted that India's manufacturing sector moved towards stabilization in June. This is because both output and new orders have contracted at much softer rates compared to April and May 2020. If you recollect yesterday we have seen one more similar index called index of 8 core industries which also said that the output of 8 core industries is reduced by more than 23% in May 2020. So this is all about this purchasing managers index. With this information let us get back to the question. The given question is the purchasing managers index often seen in news is compiled and published by. As you can see here the answer is option C a private company called IHS market. Let us move on to next news article. Let us take up this question. This question is based on this news article which talks about postal ballot. If you see in 2019 the election commission of India has given the postal ballot facility for absentee voters of essential services, senior citizens of more than 80 years of age and persons with disabilities. So these 3 sections of people were given the postal ballot facilities in 2019 general election. And today's article says that the election commission has proposed to lower the age of those who are eligible for postal ballots from 80 to 65 years. This proposal of reducing the eligibility from 80 to 65 years of age mainly to facilitate the upcoming state elections during COVID-19. So who is an absentee voter? An absentee voter is a person notified under section 60 of representation of people act 1951. As we just discussed in 2019 workers in essential services citizens of more than 80 years and persons with disabilities were given this absentee voter status. So when a person is given absentee voter status he or she is eligible for voting through postal ballot. So when we say ballot it means it is a device used to cast votes. Simply the voter slip on which the choice of voter is marked is called ballot or currently we can even consider the EVMS as ballots. When we say postal ballot the citizens can vote using the postal mechanism. So how this postal ballot mechanism work? See these postal ballot papers are printed and will be sent to each voter by returning officer. After casting their vote the voter has to put it in an envelope and sent back to returning officer. Here the main problem is identifying the present place of posting of the voter. As the addresses of each voter are not updated properly the record officers faced a huge challenge in identifying the present place of each voter. So this led to low turnout of voters of about 3-4% in 2014 election. So to address this problem election commission came up with electronically transmitted postal ballot system. So here what happens is the postal ballots and the pin for postal ballot are generated online by each returning officer of each constituency. And this pin and as well as postal ballot are separately dispatched to service voter to maintain the security of each voter. So after receiving the postal ballot as well as postal ballot pin the voter has to open the portal and this printed slip or ballot will be posted to the returning officer by each voter. So by employing this electronic postal ballot system in 2019 the voter turnout increased to 60% from a mere 3-4% in 2014 election. So this is all about the absentee voters, the postal ballot system and electronically transmitted postal ballot system. There is one more category of voters who are eligible for postal ballot. They are service voters. These service voters are voters who are having service qualification which is defined under section 20 of representation of people's act of 1950. As you can see here a member of armed forces or a member of force to which provisions of army act apply or a member of armed police force of a state who is serving outside that state or a person who is employed under government of India and is working outside of India. So this is all about these service voters. With this information let us get back to the question. Which of the given category of voters are not eligible to get service qualification under RPA 1950? First one, a member of armed forces of union, yes correct. Second, a member of force to which provisions of army act 1950 have been made applicable, yes correct. Third, any member of an armed police force of a state, now this is incorrect. Because only a member of an armed police force of a state serving outside that state is eligible for service qualification. So option C is the correct answer since we are supposed to identify not eligible category of voters. And option D, a person who is employed under government of India and posted outside India. Yes these category of persons are also eligible for service qualification. Let us take up other practice questions. Which of the following bodies are set up under the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972? So four bodies are given here and we should identify which of these bodies are set up under Wildlife Protection Act of 1972. First one, National Tiger Conservation Authority. Second, National Board for Wildlife. Third one, Central Zoo Authority. Fourth one, Wildlife Crime Control Bureau. The correct answer is option D, 1, 2, 3 and 4. All the given bodies are set up under Wildlife Protection Act of 1972. So this question has been framed based on this news article which appeared in today's newspaper which mentions Central Zoo Authority. Know that this Central Zoo Authority was established under Wildlife Protection Act of 1972. The main objective of this body is to complement and strengthen the national effort in conservation of rich biodiversity of the country, particularly the fauna as per National Zoo Policy of 1998. And the remaining three bodies that is NTCA, National Board for Wildlife and Wildlife Crime Control Bureau are extensively discussed in 28th May Hindu News Analysis. Finally watch that video to get a detailed understanding of different bodies established under Wildlife Protection Act of 1972. Let us take up next practice question. Consider the following statements with reference to Keem for Protection and Preservation of Endangered Languages, SPPEN. Two statements are given and we are supposed to identify incorrect statements. Statement one, it is a UN initiative under International Year of Indigenous Languages 2019. Know this statement is incorrect because this SPPEL is an initiative of Government of India under Ministry of Human Resource Development and this program was set up in 2013 and monitored by Central Institute of Indian Languages of Karnataka. Coming to statement two, its objective is to document and archive the languages that have become endangered or likely to be endangered in the near future. Yes, this statement is correct because this is the objective of scheme for protection and preservation of endangered languages. Here we should be little careful since we are supposed to identify incorrect statements. So the answer is option A, one only. Let us take up one more practice question. Consider the following statements with reference to Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts. Statement one, it is an autonomous body under the Ministry of Culture. Yes, the statement one is correct. Coming to statement two, it is the first National Academy of Arts set up by the Republic of India. No, the statement two is incorrect. See, the Sangeet Natak Academy is the first National Academy of Arts set up by the Republic of India in 1952. So the statement two is incorrect. Therefore, the correct answer is option A, one only since you are supposed to identify correct statements. Let us take up this main question. Discuss how bilateral trade relations impact the flow of foreign investments to India. So this question is based on that digital foreign policy article. So you can talk about all the points how the foreign investments are impacted by the relations between India and America. You can also talk about China example. Currently, India and China relations are not so great. So the investors in China may be worried to invest in India. You can talk about similar example with respect to European Union. European Union continues to be one of the prominent source of FDIs for India. And you know, India and European Union enjoys a very good relationship. Therefore, the foreign investments are coming in large numbers from European Union. So you can talk about different examples. You can also talk about the good bilateral relations between India and ASEAN. And you can end with a proper conclusion. Dear viewers, kindly write answers and please post them in the comment section. We will get back to you with necessary feedback within short time. Don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel. Stay home. Stay safe.