00:00Just to follow up on the Taiwan issue, did Foreign Minister Wang warn you against welcoming President Lai in a transit visit through the U.S.?
00:10Did he transit visit through the U.S.?
00:12This was not a warning type meeting.
00:15I mean, obviously, we understand their viewpoints on Taiwan.
00:17They're well stated.
00:18They've been stated for many years.
00:22But this was not a meeting where neither side warned each other about anything.
00:28This was very constructive and productive, and I hope that that's how they reflect it as well, because I thought it was a very positive meeting.
00:34Any surprises over the last two days?
00:37Surprises?
00:38No, I don't think so.
00:40We were very warmly received, I tell you.
00:42I mean, their reception has been great.
00:44No, I'm just saying that it was a very friendly environment, and I think the reiteration to the point we've made, and that is, look, I read these things about how the U.S. is not focused on the Indo-Pacific.
00:55But it's funny, everywhere I travel in the world, the headline is the U.S. is not paying enough attention, whether it's the Western Hemisphere or at NATO or even in the Middle East.
01:04I think sometimes there's a media dynamic that covers certain parts of the world more than others, but the relationships we have here have existed for a long time, a long time.
01:13When you talk about 6,000 American companies that are directly invested into economies of Southeast Asia, we're not walking away from that.
01:21We're not walking away from that.
01:22We're not walking away from our defense ties that we have in the region.
01:26We're not walking away from the strong economic ties we have in the region on the country.
01:30We want to build on them.
01:31Just yesterday, we signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Malaysia on civil nuclear cooperation.
01:39I believe either last night or early this morning, our arrangement on another civil nuclear program with Thailand came into effect.
01:48So we have a lot of positive things going on, and we're going to continue to build on those.
01:52We're excited about them, and we're not going to do that.
