The first to present his points was
Ambassador David Shear. Being the
Former Assistant Secretary of De-
fense for Asia-Pacific he discussed
the entirety of East Asian diplo-
macy and the implications of other
countries’ actions. He began with
the rise of China in the global trade
arena. China and the United states in
some realms have combative inter-
est. China’s recent actions of having
a pressuring presence in the China
sea creates an atmosphere of unease
in the surround countries. How the
United States reacted to Russia’s an-
nex of the Crimean Peninsula makes
our allies question our willingness to
adhere to our promises and is a factor
that undermines our alliances. China
sees the bilateral alliances between
the United States and the various
East Asian countries as relics. They
would much rather have multilateral
alliances with them being at the cen-
ter. A question I asked directed to
Ambassador Shear during the discus-
sion was, “Knowing of China’s wish-
es to be at the center of a multilateral
alliance, do you think that they see a
chance to execute this in lieu of the
United States inconsistent Domestic
politics?” I wanted to see his reac-
tion based on whether we had inad-
vertently weakened our global trade
strength due to unrest within our
borders. Ambassador Shear answered
that because we have left the Trans-
Pacific Trade Agreement, the United
States has now put itself in a position
where we must go to China, assert-
ing that China no longer has to come
to us. That then begged the question
of a zero-sum game. Does the rise
of China mean the fall of someone
else? Ambassador Shear paused and
responded that it is not a zero-sum
game and it would never lead to war,
but a drawn out negotiation. Not the
type of negotiation where everyone
sits at a table but done on a case by
case basis that would happen for each
country as the situation arises.
His next point was about North Ko-
rea and its nuclear program. They
have recently done 22 missile test,
the most ever. It has been debated on
whether they have the technology to
develop a Hydrogen bomb. United
States joint operations were able to
find the bomb’s strength range to be
anywhere from 120 to 250 Kilotons.
Since July, two ballistic missiles have
been flown over Hokkaido in Japan.
This has kept everyone on their toes
wondering if the conventional deter-
rents used for the last 60 years are no
longer practical and pondering the
use of nuclear deterrents.
Ambassador Shear ended by focus-
ing on the United States’ domestic
arena. With President Trump’s dis-
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