On April 28, 2021, CCG hosted a dialogue between CCG President Huiyao Wang and Joseph S. Nye Jr., Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor, Emeritus.

Joseph S. Nye Jr. is one of the world’s leading scholars in the field of international relations. His work has explored various notions of power and he is famous for developing the concept of “soft power.” In addition to his long and distinguished career at Harvard, which included serving as Dean of the Kennedy School of Government, Nye has also held several posts in the US government, including Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, Chair of the National Intelligence Council, and Deputy Under Secretary of State for Security Assistance, Science and Technology. Nye has published a number of influential books, the most recent of which include Soft Power, The Powers to Lead, The Future of Power, Is the American Century Over?, and Do Morals Matter? Presidents and Foreign Policy from FDR to Trump.

I had the pleasure of getting to know Joseph over a decade ago during my time at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Since then, I have enjoyed several discussions with him, including a virtual roundtable as part of the State of Europe event hosted by the Brussels-based think tank Friends of Europe in October 2020. Joseph also contributed an essay to the 2021 CCG book Consensus or Conflict? titled “China and the United States: Looking Forward 40 Years.”

Our discussion centered on great power competition and prospects for China–US relations. Nye started off by describing two global power shifts that will shape the twenty-first century. The first is a “horizontal” power shift from west to east. The second is a “vertical” power shift from governments to transnational and non-governmental actors. We went on to discuss topics such as soft power, the importance of “social interdependence” in promoting understanding between different countries, and the relevance of historical analogies from the twentieth century to current geopolitical tensions.

Huiyao Wang: Your most recent book, Do Morals Matter? Presidents and Foreign Policy from FDR to Trump explores many dimensions and CITIC Publishing House is looking forward to publishing it in China. This is a good theme to open our dialogue today.

Joseph S. Nye Jr.: I think the topic of how power is changing in the world and how that’s going to affect relations between the US and China is one of the absolute central topics of our century. In the last chapter of Do Morals Matter? I say that there are two great power shifts going on in this century. One is a power shift from west to east, which means from basically Europe and the Atlantic to the Pacific and Asia. If you think about the world in, let’s say in 1800, Asia was half of the world’s population and half of the world’s economy. By 1900, Asia is still half the world’s population, but only 20 percent of the world’s economy because of the industrial revolution in Europe and North America. What we’re seeing in this century is a return to normality, normal proportions. It’s a long process, but I think it’s an extraordinarily important power shift.

Many people see this as the rise of China and certainly, China has been central to it. But also, it starts really with the rise of Japan after the Meiji Restoration, continued also with the rise of India. So, China’s a big part of Asia, but Asia obviously is a broader concept. So, how do we manage that power transition from the west to east in a way which is beneficial for all countries and which doesn’t break down into great power rivalries, which are destructive? That is one of the great power shifts.

The other great power shift is what I would call “vertical” rather than horizontal. That’s the power shift from governments to non-governmental and transnational actors. This is driven by technology and by changes in not economic, but in ecological globalization. Things like pandemics and climate change, which don’t respect boundaries and which no government can control working alone, [things that have to] be controlled by working with other governments. That’s why in my book, I talk about the fact that the first type of power shift, the one that I would call horizontal, is one that can lead to “power over”—competitive power, in which we think in traditional terms of “power over” other countries. When you look at this other power shift, the vertical one from governments to transnational, this requires a different form of power, called “power with” rather than “power over,” because no country can solve those problems alone. So, if you take climate change, for example, China cannot solve climate change by itself. The US can’t solve it by itself. Europe can’t solve it. It’s going to have to be cooperative, yet it’s tremendously important for each of us. If the Himalayan glaciers melt, that’s going to destroy agriculture in China. If the sea levels rise, that’s going to put much of Florida underwater. Neither [the US or China] can deal with that acting alone, we have to work with each other. That’s the importance of “power with.”

So, what I argue in [Do Morals Matter?] is that these two power shifts lead to an emphasis on two different types of power, “power over” others and “power with” others. If we’re going to have to learn to live in a world where we manage both simultaneously, that’s not easy. People always like things to be simple—either one or the other. In fact, it’s going to be both.

Huiyao Wang: Thank you, Joseph. I think you illustrate well the power shifts occurring and the nature of horizontal power “over” and vertical power “with.”

You are an authority on power narratives, particularly soft power. You first coined the term “soft power” in your 1990 book Bound to Lead, which challenged the conventional view of American power in decline. America is still a very powerful country. How do you see the development of American soft power since then and what can we learn from this experience? For example, America still has the best universities that attract talent from all over the world. How has the impact of the Trump administration in the last several years affected American soft power?

Joseph S. Nye Jr.: Well, soft power is the ability to influence others through attraction rather than coercion or payment. I first developed this idea back in 1989 and 1990, when there was a widespread belief at the time that America was in decline, and I thought that was incorrect. But after I totaled up the usual resources of military power and economic power and so forth, I [felt] there was still something missing, which is the ability to attract, and that’s why I developed this concept of soft power.

Now, if you look back over the years, American soft power goes up and down over time. In the last four years under President Trump, we’ve seen a considerable loss of American soft power. Trump’s populist nationalism and his attitudes in general made America less attractive. I think that the last four years have been bad years for American soft power. You can measure that by looking at public opinion polls like Pew polls or Gallup polls and so forth of international opinion. On the other hand, I think it’s likely that American soft power will recover under President Biden. He’s already reversed some of the things that Trump did which were particularly unpopular, such as the withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accords or withdrawal from the World Health Organization. So those are things that help. In addition, [Biden’s] attitudes more generally, I think, are less nativist, nationalist, and therefore will make the US more attractive to other countries.

Does this indicate American decline? The interesting thing to me is that there are always beliefs that America is in decline. It comes in cycles. And what [these views] miss is the ability of the Americans to be resilient, to regenerate themselves. Take the 1960s, the US was extremely unpopular around the world because of the Vietnam War. But by the 1970s and 80s, American soft power had been restored. So, in that sense, though we’ve had a bad four years under Trump, I don’t regard that as a sign of American decline. I think it’s more typical of the cycles that we’ve gone through in the past, and I expect that [the US] will probably recover from this one, as we have from others in the past.

Huiyao Wang: The world has changed a lot since the end of the twentieth century. During the first 20 years of this century, we have seen globalization expanding rapidly and multinational corporations (MNCs) operating more widely around the world. But there is an idea that while MNCs have expanded their operations, they have not brought sufficient benefits to their home or host countries. For example, in the US, the gap between rich and poor has widened, contributing to the rise of populism and nationalism. What do you think about this kind of “deglobalization” that damages soft power, not only for the US but for other countries as well? Have we seen setbacks for soft power?

Joseph S. Nye Jr.: Well, I think you’re right that one of the things that globalization has done is to produce challenges to different groups within domestic society, which has stimulated populist and nationalistic reactions. If you’re a factory worker in, let’s say, the middle of the US, and you lose your job because the job is going to China or to Vietnam, you’re not likely to be in favor of globalization and you’ll react against this, and many such people wound up being voters for President Trump. Then again, I think you could argue that this increased inequalities; while some people benefited from globalization, others didn’t, and that rising inequality is another tension in the political system. So, a country’s soft power depends not just on the words that it says, but on the deeds that it does and the way that it practices its own values at home. In that sense, we’ve seen that globalization has produced a degree of populist reaction, which has produced a polarization in politics, which has undercut the attractiveness or soft power of the US. I think that is a real factor. One of the things that President Biden is doing is focusing on his domestic agenda to try to cure many of those aspects, and I think that he is headed in the right direction for that.

But it’s true that globalization produces a reaction, and that reaction can undercut soft power. This doesn’t mean that soft power is less important, but it does mean that it’s hard to maintain under conditions like that. What you see when you have disruptive social change is a tendency to populism and nationalism. And you see this in many countries. Nationalism [may become] attractive to people inside the country, but almost by definition, since [nationalism] sets a country apart in an antagonistic role, it’s not attractive to others. This is a problem for the US and for China, too. If you take the so-called “wolf warrior” diplomacy, that might be popular inside China as part of a response to Chinese nationalism, but it’s not very popular in other countries.

Huiyao Wang: You raised a good comment in an article you wrote for The Wall Street Journal in 2005 on the rise of Chinese soft power, which referred to [NBA star] Yao Ming, the film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and the Beijing Olympics.

China has a 5000-year history and rich cultural resources such as Confucianism. We see that Chinese collectivism can have advantages when it comes to helping China fight climate change or the pandemic. So, how do you see Chinese soft power and what could be done to enhance it?

Joseph S. Nye Jr.: Chinese soft power has many sources. One, of course, is Chinese traditional culture, which is very attractive. Indeed, the very idea of soft power can be traced back to great Chinese thinkers like Laozi. I may have coined the words “soft power,” but the concept of influencing others by attraction is an ancient Chinese philosophy. So, Chinese traditional culture is a source of soft power for China. Another major source of soft power is China’s remarkable economic performance. China has raised hundreds of millions of people out of poverty in the last 40 years. This is widely admired and provides attraction and influence for China.

If there are deep sources for China’s soft power, I think there are also problems. One is that when you have conflict with your neighbors—for example, China has conflicts with many countries related to the South China Sea or its borders with India—that makes it hard to generate soft power in those countries. You can set up a Confucius Institute in New Delhi and teach Chinese culture, but you’re not going to attract Indians if Chinese soldiers are killing Indian soldiers on the Himalayan border.

So, one problem for Chinese soft power is the existence of these territorial conflicts with a number of its neighbors. Another limit on China’s soft power is the insistence on tight Party control of civil society. A great deal of a country’s soft power is produced not by its government, but by its civil society. [Civil society] makes a country more attractive and more resilient. If the Party insists on clamping down on everything in civil society, that makes it less flexible, less attractive. If you have a creative genius produced by Chinese civil society, the best thing to do is to celebrate that, not to try and control it. We saw this just this week. Chloe Zhao, the Chinese film director who won the Oscar for the best director; that should be celebrated in China, not censored.

Huiyao Wang: I think there are different interpretations of that. China has 1.4 billion people and developing the standards and measures of soft power will be a gradual process. For example, with a 5000-year history of collective society, people are willing to sacrifice some individual freedoms for the sake of the community. This has worked well in fighting COVID-19 in China. In China, basically, you can now go anywhere and there are no more COVID-19 cases. So, I think some of those things are a changing dynamic. But there’s always room to improve.

In your recent book, Do Morals Matter? you analyze the role of ethics in US foreign policy in the American era after 1945 from FDR to President Trump. As we are now facing a more complex world, what do you think about President Biden as he reaches 100 days in office, having analyzed the previous 14 presidents before him?

Joseph S. Nye Jr. : [For] Biden, it’s still much soon to judge him historically, because we have only seen three months of his presidency. But [so far] he seems to be doing pretty well. President Trump took a position of being divisive for political support. His popularity with the US public never rose above 50 percent. Present Biden has taken a different approach, which is trying to appeal more broadly. His popularity is somewhere around 57 percent. That’s an indication of a different style of leadership and is a good sign for the future, but it’s much too early to judge at this stage.

Huiyao Wang: Do you think that President Biden and President Xi, with the world facing the pandemic and climate change, can demonstrate some kind of moral relationship? If China and the US can work together to fight the pandemic, we’d probably have a much more organized world. I think that kind of moral leadership is important for both President Biden and President Xi.

Joseph S. Nye Jr.: Exactly right, I’m sure. I’ve argued that we have to think of the US–China relationship as what I call a “cooperative rivalry.” There will be areas of rivalry. For example, different views on the navigation of the South China Sea will be an area of traditional rivalry. But [things are different] when it comes to ecological interdependence, which is illustrated by climate or by pandemics. Viruses do not respect nationality, they just want to reproduce themselves, so they cross borders without any respect to what governments say or to politics. The same thing is true with greenhouse gases. In that sense, we have to be able to realize that ecological interdependence, which is a form of globalization, is [something] that requires cooperation. So, while there will be rivalry in certain areas, there has to be cooperation at the same time. At this virtual climate summit held by President Biden last week, I was pleased to see President Xi, President Putin, and others, because it really is essential that we overcome rivalries in areas where we must cooperate. There’s no alternative to cooperation.

Huiyao Wang: You’ve previously said that the development of soft power need not be a zero-sum game. Do you think that both the US and China could gain soft power from cooperating in certain areas? For example, President Biden has announced a major infrastructure plan and China has become a leader in infrastructure over the past four decades, being home to two-thirds of the total length of high-speed rail and seven of the ten largest container ports. Maybe China and the US could work together on infrastructure or on the global fight against COVID-19—could this help to increase the soft power of both sides and encourage more cooperation?

Joseph S. Nye Jr.: I think that’s correct. Soft power doesn’t have to be zero-sum. If, for example, China becomes more attractive in the US, and the US becomes more attractive in China—that can help both of us overcome our differences.

Some years ago, I co-authored an article with a distinguished Chinese scholar, Wang Jisi of Peking University. We pointed out in that article that soft power can be positive-sum in which both sides can benefit simultaneously—not always, but in some instances. And that’s why it’s important for the US and China to find areas where they can cooperate because we both look more attractive in the eyes of other countries if we do so. Most countries don’t want to have to choose in a harsh way between China and the US. To that extent, when we are cooperating, particularly on the production of global public goods, as you can imagine, that increases China’s soft power and increases American soft power at the same time. At the Boao Forum [for Asia in April 2021] I mentioned the idea that the US and China could work together on the idea of strengthening health systems for poor countries, including their vaccine capabilities, which would be good for us as well as good for them, and which would also enhance the soft power of both our countries.

Huiyao Wang: China and the US are the two largest economies in the world and the US has been a leader in building the post-war system of global governance. China has benefited greatly from this system and is now more active in trying to add to it. So, there is great potential to work together.

I notice that you’ve questioned the model of the Thucydides Trap in which a rising power challenges the ruling power; that part of this could be a genuine challenge, and that fear also plays a role, and that this situation can cause a self-fulfilling prophecy of conflict, but that we should not overemphasize this aspect. That’s an interesting view that maybe you can elaborate on. Because we don’t want to get into any deadly confrontation, we are so interdependent now.

Joseph S. Nye Jr.: I think that’s right. A rising power can create fear in an established power and that can be the source of conflict, but it doesn’t have to be. Even thinking back to the Peloponnesian War, which Thucydides described, he said the causes of the war were the rise and the power of Athens and the fear it created in Sparta. We can control the amount of fear—if we become too obsessive about fear of each other, then we could fall into something like the Thucydides trap.

My own view is that we don’t have to succumb to that fear. Basically, as I see it, China does not pose an existential threat to the US and the US doesn’t pose an existential threat to China. We’re not trying to take over China. So, in that sense, we will compete, but we should limit the fears. It’s not as though it’s life-or-death fears. In that sense, going back to Thucydides: the rise in China’s power will likely continue, there’s not much we can do about that. Only China will do something about it, which is how it behaves domestically. But the fear that this creates in the US is something we can do something about, which is to not exaggerate [the threat from] China, to not become overly fearful. Competition is healthy. Frankly, the idea that the Americans will improve some things at home, such as infrastructure, because China is leading the way for example on high-speed rail, that can be healthy. But if it becomes obsessively fearful, it can become destructive.

So, my view is that we should be careful of the language we use. I don’t like this language some people are using about a new “Cold War” between the US and China. I think that’s a misreading of history. It implies a deeper and more intractable conflict than is really the case. If you look back to the real Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union, there was almost no economic interdependence, whereas with the US and China [today], you find just the opposite—half a trillion dollars [in bilateral] trade. If you look back on the real Cold War, there was no social interdependence, whereas today more than 3 million Chinese come to the US as tourists and 300,000 as students. So, there is much greater economic interdependence, social interdependence, and ecological interdependence. During the Cold War, we were less worried about climate change or pandemics. [Increasing] globalization and interdependence urge us to be careful about not using metaphors like the Cold War, which were [apt] for a time in history, but not necessarily accurate descriptions of the current period of history.

Huiyao Wang: Absolutely. The term “Cold War” is really obsolete when we have such deep economic interdependence, social dependence, ecological dependence, and technology interdependence. So, decoupling or confrontation between China and the US does not make sense.

I remember last time when you were in China you talked about “cooperative rivalry.” What can China and the US do to achieve a healthy cooperative rivalry?

Joseph S. Nye Jr.: One thing is to strengthen the ties that we have—students, visitors, communication—these are important aspects of what I call “social interdependence” which help to develop deeper understanding between [our] societies.

The other is on economic interdependence. There will be some areas where there will be decoupling, in areas that touch on [security issues]. For example, Americans are very worried about Huawei or ZTE controlling 5G telecommunications in the US for security reasons. I don’t think you can see more economic interdependence [in this area], just as China doesn’t want to allow Google or Facebook to operate freely inside China because of security reasons. So, there will be some areas where there will be decoupling. But that doesn’t mean we want to see overall economic decoupling, which would be extraordinarily costly for both countries.

Finally, we have this question of how we manage the relationship overall so that we avoid miscalculations or accidents. People who talk about 1945 in the Cold War are picking the wrong date for a historical analogy. As Henry Kissinger points out, 1914 is something we should pay more attention to. At the time, none of the great powers in Europe wanted a world war. They expected their competition in the Balkans to see a short, sharp conflict that would redress the balance of power, and then things would go back to normal. Instead, through miscalculations and failure to manage the competitive parts of the relationship, they wound up with four years of war, which destroyed four empires and destroyed the centrality of Europe in the global balance of power.

We have to be extremely cautious and careful that we don’t allow some incident in the South China Sea or over Taiwan to lead us into something which nobody intends with great unintended consequences. That’s going to require constant communication, so we need to enhance our cooperation in areas of interdependence where it’s possible to cooperate, but in the areas which are competitive we have to be much more cautious and attentive in how we communicate with each other to [avoid] miscalculations. Those are the two things I think we have to do to avoid this relationship becoming a zero-sum game.

As I mentioned earlier, I remain relatively optimistic about the long run. But humans make mistakes. That’s the nature of being human so we have to guard against those mistakes.

Huiyao Wang: Absolutely, it's important to promote mutual understanding and avoid miscalculations, as disasters can happen.

I remember that you have said that a new Cold War is not possible, for several reasons. Americans shouldn’t be too worried about China; geographically, the US is far [from China] and has friendly neighbors. Also, the US is already self-sufficient in energy, while China is still dependent on imports. Technology-wise, the US remains in the lead in many areas. So, the US shouldn’t have such great cause for concern about China.

I hope we can build trust in China–US relations. As we approach the end of President Biden’s first 100 days in office, how can we shape a different perspective for the future of US–China relations?

Joseph S. Nye Jr.: One of the things that both of us have to worry about is the rise of nationalism in our two countries. I mentioned earlier that the effect of globalization on creating inequality and disrupting jobs and so forth led to more populist and nativist nationalism in the US and that produced voters for President Trump. But let’s be frank, there’s also rising nationalism in China. If you look at the Chinese web, you’ll notice enormous nationalism. In China, there’s still this argument about overcoming nineteenth-century history as a form of recruiting support. Things like “wolf warrior” diplomacy are very popular inside China. But those things are not healthy in terms of creating trust in other countries.

Take, for example, the program, [Made in China 2025], about [developing homegrown] technologies. That made sense inside China but created fear in Washington. The fact that China was going to try to replace the US in a whole series of important technologies created fear in Washington. Or when President Xi Jinping said that China would be number one in artificial intelligence by 2030, that was read in Washington as well—that China intends to replace the US by 2030. It might have been a good goal in terms of recruiting national support inside China, but every political leader faces what’s called the “two–audience problem.” One audience is internal, the other audience is external, and sometimes messages that play well internally play badly externally. I think both [the US and China], given the rise in nationalism that’s produced to some extent by globalization, have to be careful about the two–audience problem.

Huiyao Wang: You are correct. For the competition to remain peaceful, it is important to pay attention to domestic politics and prevent populism from getting out of hand. In America, there is a widening gap between rich and poor and major racial divides. In the last several decades, China has been trying to reduce the income inequality gap, though there remain significant urban–rural differences. China has been working to lift 800 million people out of extreme poverty so that poverty doesn’t generate populism and dissatisfaction with globalization or China’s opening–up. I think that lessons can be learned for both countries.

One problem is how we can get multinational corporations and other players such as non-government and non-profit organizations to work together for a more inclusive and balanced form of globalization, particularly in developing countries. Also, given the impact of COVID-19 in developing countries, it’s crucial that the US and China work together. Last weekend, we celebrated the 50th anniversary of “ping pong diplomacy” between China and the US. The slogan then was, “friendship first, competition second.” As a professor that has seen many ups and downs in the bilateral relationship, what’s your take on the future of Sino-US relations? I have noticed you have outlined quite a few scenarios for the future.

Joseph S. Nye Jr.: One could imagine a variety of scenarios. Any time you try to guess the future, you have to realize that there is no “one” future. There are many possible futures and they’re affected by [unexpected] events that we don’t yet know and also affected by our own actions and [behaviors]. One can imagine futures of US–China relations which are bad or good. What we then have to [consider] is, what are the things we can do to steer toward the good relations which are beneficial to both.

When you look back historically, since 1945, we’ve gone through a series of [phases in the US–China] relationship. In the first 20 years or so, things were pretty tough. After all, the US and Chinese soldiers fought each other on the Korean Peninsula in the 1950s. So, we had twenty years of a tense relationship. Then, as you pointed out, we had ping pong diplomacy and the easing of relations, Nixon’s visit to Beijing, and another 20 years of improving relations. During the Clinton administration, there was a desire to integrate [a rising] China into the international order through the World Trade Organization and so forth. That lasted nearly 20 years, but with the arrival of Donald Trump in 2015–2016, there was a feeling among many Americans that China was not playing fair—that it was subsidizing state-owned enterprises, stealing intellectual property, and militarizing islands in the South China Sea, which President Xi had promised President Obama he would not do. Then there was a reaction against this, so we started another cycle. So, we’ve gone through ups and downs roughly every twenty years. [Taking] that same 20-year cycle, we’re [now] in the middle—it started around 2015 and through 2025 will be 10 years. I hope it doesn’t have to last that long, but it’s quite possible that we’ll have intense competition for 20 years.

My own personal view is that China [isn’t] a threat to the existence of the US, [nor is] the US a threat to the existence of China. So, in that sense, I think that you could imagine some period—who knows, maybe 2035—when you’ll see the cycle turn toward better relations, or maybe even sooner than that. But again, as with any time you predict the future, you have to realize that history is always full of surprises. Every time you think you know something, there’s going to be something which you haven’t taken into account. So that makes it more important that we try to [act] cautiously so that we don’t get the wrong sorts of surprises.

Huiyao Wang: I agree with you, China is not a threat to the US and hopefully the US is not a threat to China.

In one of your Project Syndicate articles [published in October 2020], you talked about five scenarios for the international order in 2030. Scenario one was that the liberal international order could come to an end because of populism and other political forces. The second scenario was something similar to the 1930s, with massive unemployment, economic depression, and politicians taking advantage of this situation to promote populist protectionism. Scenario three was China being more active in the international arena or dominating the global order, with China’s GDP surpassing that of the US. The fourth scenario discussed the global green agenda, such as climate change and a “COVID Marshall Plan.” The fifth scenario emphasized similarities and coexistence between countries. We’ve talked about China and the US, so let’s [take a look] into your crystal ball for the future of the entire world.

Joseph S. Nye Jr.: I do think that you’re going to see an increased importance of the green agenda, simply because this is something which obeys the laws of physics and biology, not politics. As more and more people and countries become aware of the importance of climate change and the dangers of things like pandemics, I think that’s going to put pressure on political leaders to take these issues more seriously than they have in the past. It’s not going to totally replace traditional politics and traditional competition by any means, but it will become increasingly important. That means that the cooperative dimensions [of the international order] are going to have to increase.

Political leaders could still make mistakes and fail to see this or react to it. But I do think that it’s a source of potential optimism, that this agenda [will become increasingly important] because of physics and biology. So, of the various scenarios that I sketched out for the world in that Project Syndicate column, I saw the gradual evolution of the world as we see it now as the most likely. But I put more emphasis on the green agenda now than I would have before COVID, so I remain relatively optimistic that we can pull through this period.

Huiyao Wang: I’m glad you’re cautiously optimistic because all countries are so dependent on each other.

We now have over 800,000 people tuned in to our dialogue […] So, as a final conclusion, what would you like to say to this large audience today?

Joseph S. Nye Jr.: Well, we’re all human. We’re bound to make mistakes. There are bound to be tensions and competition between Chinese and Americans. But we have to keep it in perspective. We have more in common and more to gain from cooperation, and we have to keep that perspective. So, I think if we have an optimistic view about our potential to manage competition and to practice cooperation, I think we can look to a good future.

Huiyao Wang: Great, Professor Nye, thank you so much, we appreciate you taking the time to talk with me. We hope to see you next time. We also want to thank our audience in China and the rest of the world.