Jim Webb

We are the only guarantor to provide some sort of a credible umbrella under which these other countries in the region can successfully grow their economies without intimidation

We have a serious vulnerability in our relationship with China that feeds a lot of the anxieties on these other issues

Strategy is like birth control, that the possibility of an incident increases if you cease to take the necessary precautions.

This is not a hearing that is designed to bash China; it's a hearing that is designed to raise issues that aren't being discussed.

Gentlemen, I appreciate your coming today, your testimony was very valuable, and we will be following this issue very closely over the coming months.

No action that China has taken will stop us, or has stopped us, from continuing to pursue those activities that we see in our strategic interests.

What you have is a clear example of incrementalism, which has not been properly responded to.

We tend to take these incidents as isolated incidents, and we resolve the incident, and then we dismiss it, and we say things are fine.

The situation in the region, as it respects the current Chinese claims is to the effect that almost all of the South China Sea is in some way claimed by China.

We are a resident--a territorial--we have territory in the western Pacific, and we are a resident power.

This military buildup on Guam is viewed as permanently anchoring the U.S. in the region, and cementing our resident power status.

China's evolution has changed the regional economic balance, has enabled China to expand its political influence.

At the pinnacle of this issue is China's growing military, diplomatic, and economic power.

No other topic brings into light the enormous and complex challenges facing the United States in Asia.

I appreciate the observation that both of you made several times that the United States does not take sides in issues of sovereignty for many, many reasons.

Are you aware of any new information that would lead you to differ with the Navy's previously stated assessment that the risk of Hampton Roads being closed is small?

The proposal to extend the time to build nuclear-powered aircraft carriers from 4 to 5 years will lead to a force of 10 operational aircraft carriers by 2040.

It is in the interests of every American, in every community across this land, that we thoroughly examine our entire criminal justice system.

The national disgrace of our present criminal justice system does not present us with the horrifying immediacy of the 9/11 attacks.

I would like to say that we worked, along with staff on this Committee, to bring a panel today that I think is truly extraordinary in its breadth and in its depth of understanding.

The disintegration of this system day by day, year by year, and the movement toward mass incarceration... is dramatically affecting millions of lives.

We find ourselves as a Nation in the midst of a profound, deeply corrosive crisis that we have largely been ignoring at our peril.

I have long believed that if we approached the criminal justice system with two principal objectives, that a great deal could be done to restrain it.

And we require it in other areas. They need to understand us every bit as much as we need to understand them.

Militarily, we should go, at the right time. I think everyone should know that. Diplomatically, culturally, we should be staying.