The Global Cable, China, Asia-Pacific, Power & Security China's Western Horizon: Beijing and the New Geopolitics of Eurasia

This summer, we've launched a special edition of The Global Cable - our 'Summer Reading List.' Every other week, we'll release a new conversation with an author, discussing their latest book and the inspiration behind it.

This week's guest is Daniel Markey, a senior research professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and the academic director of SAIS’s Global Policy Program. From 2003 to 2007, Markey held the South Asia portfolio on the Secretary’s Policy Planning Staff at the US Department of State.

Markey talks to our host John Gans about his book China's Western Horizon: Beijing and the New Geopolitics of Eurasia. He explains China's landmark Belt and Road Initiative; why China’s rise won’t necessarily be on its own terms; why he’d like to meet China's President Xi Jinping; and what he learned on a research trip to Kazahkstan.

Listen on Apple Podcasts | Libsyn | Spotify | Stitcher

Music & Produced by Tre Hester.

Franklin Few

On every episode of The Global Cable, we ask our guests the 'Franklin Few' - an updated version of a questionnaire used by Penn founder Benjamin Franklin. Here are Daniel Markey's answers.

Someone you'd like to meet: Xi Jinping, President of the People's Republic of China.

A book, movie, or anything else you'd recommend to listeners: The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare by Christian Brose.

Someone who's recently done something that deserves praise or attention: Public figures who are modeling measures to limit the spread of COVID-19 - especially two journalists he recently saw on Pakistani television, who wore masks and sat apart from each other during the broadcast.

Something Penn and Penn students can do to be of service to the world: Being safe and smart in the COVID-19 pandemic, especially when they're preparing to return to campus. 

Transcript

Daniel Markey [00:00:08] So this is something I've been puzzling over for well over a decade. As I start casting about for topics on the new book, I thought, that's interesting, China and South Asia. But I also thought, I've been working on South Asia for a while now. I'm sure there are some interesting comparisons to be drawn across a wider swath of territory, so how about I push this into Central Asia? And then the more I thought about it, the more I thought it made sense to keep going on into the Middle East and draw that it as well and really think about continental Eurasia more broadly. And the more I did reading on that, the more I realized that there was some good work already being done about how these linkages were really coming together over recent decades.

John Gans [00:00:57] Welcome to The Global Cable, a podcast from Perry World House at the University of Pennsylvania, where we discuss the world's most important issues with people who work on it. I'm John Gans, the Director of Communications and Research here at Perry World House.

[00:01:10] With COVID-19 restrictions keeping us indoors and at home more than we expected this summer, we've decided to release a special series of our podcast, The Summer Reading List. On each episode, we'll speak to an expert about their latest book. They'll share what inspired them, what they learned during the writing process, and more.

 [00:01:28] Our author today is Dan Markey, a senior research professor at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, or SAIS, and the academic director of SAIS's Global Policy Program. From 2003 to 2007, Markey held the South Asia portfolio on the Secretary of State's Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. State Department. His latest book is "China's Western Horizon: Beijing and the New Geopolitics of Eurasia," which was recently published by Oxford University Press. In our conversation, Markey explains why China's rise won't necessarily be on its own terms or those of the United States, why he’d like to meet China's Xi Jinping, and what he learned on a research trip to Kazakhstan and from a recent Pakistani news program. Dan Markey, welcome to The Global Cable.

John Gans [00:02:20] Dan Markey, welcome to The Global Cable.

Daniel Markey [00:02:23] Great to be with you.

John Gans [00:02:25] And congratulations on your book, it's excellent.

Daniel Markey [00:02:29] Thank you.

John Gans [00:02:29] So your first book was about Pakistan, in particular, America's tortured relationship with that country. Which is your words, not mine. Or at least your subtitle, not mine. So why did you why did you shift your focus east and start thinking more about China with this latest book, which is called China's Western Horizon: Beijing and the New Geopolitics of Eurasia?

Daniel Markey [00:02:57] Well, really, I've been interested in China for a long time. And I think both people who care about kind of world order and international relations can't help but be interested in the rise of China. So that's kind of the story of the century, in a sense. And so even when I was working on my last book on the U.S.-Pakistan relationship, the chapter I started writing first in that whole book was about  broader regional geopolitics. So China's relations with India, China's relations with Pakistan, U.S. relations with all of them, and all of that actually came about as a consequence of a tasking that I had gotten from the intelligence community years ago to try to think about the regional geopolitics and especially China's role in the region.

[00:03:47] So this is something I've been puzzling over for well over a decade. And so as I started casting about for topics on the new book, I thought, you know, that's interesting, China and South Asia. But I also thought, you know, I've been working on South Asia for a while now. I'm sure there are some interesting comparisons to be drawn across a wider swath of territory so how about I push this into Central Asia? And then the more I thought about it, the more I thought it made sense to keep going on into the Middle East and draw that in as well and really think about continental Eurasia more broadly.

[00:04:22] And the more I did reading on that, the more I realized that there was some good work already being done about how these linkages were really coming together over recent decades. People like Kent Calder at SAIS for writing about this. I found that it was like an early stages of a literature that could easily be expanded and also a relatively open field. Not so many people writing about China's relations with all these regions. When I started about six years ago, now there are more, but there's still a lot of work to be done. So that's what drove this.

John Gans [00:04:54] What's fascinating, because I think one of the essential points you make, and I think one of the book's real virtues is that you make it very clear and sort of obvious, even though it might not have been obvious for a lot of people who pick up the book, that China's rise will not really be on its own terms. And I think you also make the point that it's not going to be on America's terms either. You argue China's rise will necessarily be shaped by the interests of those states on its near periphery like Pakistan. So why do you make that claim? I think we hear a lot of hype about China's rise and its inevitability. Why do you make that claim and why is Pakistan a good example?

[00:05:42] Yeah. That's exactly right. I mean, the core, if you want to say analytical finding of my research, is that to understand what China is doing in other countries, you really have to look at what those countries want, what their interests are, what the opportunities to China might be. And all of those things, the more you think about it, the more it's just painfully obvious that all of those opportunities are framed by local interests, local actors, local histories.

Daniel Markey [00:06:12] You know, what is available to China and South Asia isn't just planned out on some secret blackboard in Beijing somewhere where they get to plot out their next moves on the basis of what makes sense in terms of a broad geopolitical competition with the United States. When they come to South Asia, they come to a place that's got a deep history, some of which were related to China, most of which has to do at least it's contemporary history has to do with this conflict between India and Pakistan, for instance. And as soon as China enters into even in a relatively benign way, enters into, say, investment opportunities made available in a place like Pakistan, it immediately has consequences and reverberations in terms of how India sees China and how Pakistanis understand China and respond to China. And so the more I thought about it, the more I thought, well, you know, that seems sort of obvious.

[00:07:09] But yet back here in Washington, there seems to be a tendency for us to all try to become amateur, if not expert Beijing-ologists. Try to understand the world as if China really did have the ability to plot out a global course of action in a vacuum without reference to that local geography or political geography or political economy. So I really wanted to highlight that and then to really stress that point and to investigate that point in places like Pakistan, but also in Kazakhstan, in Iran and other parts of the region where you can very clearly see that, you know, decisions being made by leaders on the ground or interest groups on the ground. You know, China's opportunistic will respond to those but doesn't get to create those. And so they set the stage for what's on offer in China. This makes certain countries very eager to work with China at various points like Iran. Why is Iran so eager to work with China, if not because of the position that it's already in? With respect to the United States and its regional competition with Saudi Arabia, that's not Beijing's doing, that's that's already given. And that will continue to affect the relationship between China and in that case, the Middle East probably for decades to come. Missing that point, this is, you know, at least a big part of the equation, if not half of it. And we seem to be missing that too frequently here in debates in the United States so I wanted to really highlight it.

John Gans [00:08:42] Just as a comment,  what I think you've done, and I think in a very short digestible way is you do a good job explaining just how complicated the thinking and strategizing in Beijing must be, because every one of these countries on the periphery. You tend to focus on the western horizon, but there's there's a similar complicated calculus going on on the eastern horizon as well for China, which is there are a lot of proud, powerful countries all surrounding China, and that have strong views about its rise and it must be incredibly complicated to that calculus and think about how to chart a rise in that environment.

Daniel Markey [00:09:30] Yeah, and I'll just say on that point, one thing that may be happening and it's difficult with the Chinese system is somewhat opaque and otherwise close to our views. But appreciate they also have trouble understanding all this complexity. There are a lot of domestic politics and internal compulsions that lead China to take actions that don't always mesh well with the local reality of places where they try them out. So Chinese state owned enterprises may be forced to operate in a country like Pakistan where they actually don't think they're going to make money, but Beijing is putting political pressure on them to do so. That's a China based story.

[00:10:13] But how it actually plays out will have to do with the complexity on the ground in Pakistan. So, yes, they have to grapple with that. I would give them mixed scores on how effective they've been. You know, I could I can give us mixed scores on how effective we've been in understanding regional and local dynamics as the United States attempts to do things overseas. This isn't an easy business and China's got relatively less experience with it, even than we do.

John Gans [00:10:45] We've talked a little about the analysis, which is really balanced and informed by your experience in government. You served it at some of the highest levels of the U.S. government and then also in the academy. You tell really great stories with a novelist's attention to detail. One of those is about the Pakistani port city of water. Why is that port so important to this story about China's rise and to your thesis about the challenges in there, but also so essential to the book itself, which I think it really does help shape and track all the way through.

Daniel Markey [00:11:25] Yeah. So, I do open the book with the story of Gwadar Port, which is on the Arabian Sea. And so not far from the Persian Gulf, strategically relevant to that region. And I wanted to tell the story because in a way, there is a common or a standard way that this story has been told in circles in Washington and actually in India as well. It's often portrayed as one among a string of pearls, that is, of Chinese bases and places where China is trying to project its military power into the Indo-Pacific and to extend its reach across this region. And so by helping Pakistan build a water port, the idea is that Beijing has this grand scheme that is extending its regional influence.

[00:12:16] And, you know, some of that may well, ultimately end up being true. That is, China has built a port at Djibouti. Clearly that has power projection capability consequences. Gwadar may end up being that over time. But the reality of Gwadar, as I came to know it from both Pakistani and Chinese sources, is that originally it was built in around 2000. The request to build this, to fund it and to bring in the equipment necessary to do so came from Pakistan's leader, President Musharraf, to Beijing and gone on a trip that Musharraf took there. And this request came not because of Pakistan appealing to China's kind of strategic sensibilities. It came as Pakistan appealing because of Pakistan's own desire to have a deep sea port there, another port to compliment Karachi and other port to take pressure off Karachi, and also to put pressure on India and shipping in the in the event of another India Pakistan conflict. Then the more that I that I pressed, the more was evident. And I had a chance even to talk to Musharraf at one point and make sure that I had the story right. And it was very clear from him that this was a port for Pakistan's own strategic interests and that the Chinese were actually surprised by the request, couldn't even believe that such a port made much sense, certainly didn't make sense commercially, but might not even make sense strategically. But they were willing to go along for the ride for a while.

[00:13:54] That to me, you know, there a lot of other things I could say about the port, but that to me was a clear indication of the opportunities that are created by local interests that then China can seize opportunistically. And I saw I wanted to use that as an example. Although one other piece of that story that I think is worth pointing out is that Gwadar is located in a really difficult spot in Pakistan. Strong secessionist movement there, where militancy terrorists who are bent, it seems, on attacking Chinese workers who are on site, Chinese diplomats in consulates and the embassy and so on. And so this is not necessarily going to be a project that leads to a greater stability, greater economic growth, all the good things that China talks about. For instance, when it talks about its Belt and Road Initiative may not really materialize in a place like Gwadar. It may actually lead to more infighting, social and political, economic cleavages within Pakistan. There will be certain winners from this and certain very obvious losers fighting among themselves.

[00:15:09] And that story is also another important piece of what's happening in the region outside influence like China, even when it comes packaged in investment or trade, necessarily benefits certain people more than others. And these cleavages can actually make societies less stable rather than more stable. So that's another big piece of the storyline in this book is how does China's involvement affect the internal politics and economics of these societies? And in general, I find that it's certainly a mixed story. And in Pakistan, I worry that it's not a good news story.

John Gans [00:15:49] We're building off a little bit about that because you talk here about the One Belt One Road Initiative, obviously a central central sort of piece of the book and a central part of, you know, Chinese foreign policy. So many of our listeners have heard about One Belt One Road. Can you explain what it is and why you think it's more complicated than its height might suggest?

Daniel Markey [00:16:14] Yeah. So the Belt and Road Initiative is, in a sense, the signature foreign policy vision and agenda of China's president Xi Jinping. The things that have gotten the most global headlines are that it includes significant investment. And here it's difficult to to actually characterize the dollar figure, but billions, possibly hundreds of billions of dollars and likely investment, mainly in transit infrastructure but also things like power plants and other manufacturing capabilities across much of China's region. That is through the countries that I'm looking at in this book, but also through Southeast Asia, there's a maritime element to this, and off into even Africa, Latin America. And now it's gotten additional pieces that extend its reach into the digital realm. There’s a Digital Silk Road and a Arctic Silk Road. And now there is a Health Silk Road.

[00:17:22] So a lot of this is kind of just a vision and rhetoric for extending China's reach globally and for making it a relevant global player. And it's been complemented by a series of high profile summit meetings that have been held in Beijing that have brought senior officials from around the world and demonstrate China's newfound convening powers as a global player. So it's really critical to establishing the vision of what President Xi and others in China believe China's new role ought to be: a much more ambitious grand role on the global stage.

[00:17:59] But what is often accompanied with, certainly from the Chinese side, is rhetoric of what they typically say win-win and use other kinds of very benign and positive ways to frame what they're up to. [00:18:13]Everybody will benefit from this Belt and Road Initiative, just get onboard. There's money to be available. There will be regional interconnectivity through rail lines and pipelines and train lines and now fiber optic cables and everything and all these good things will lift everyone's  boats, the rising tide will lift all the boats. It's a wonderful vision for the world. What that tends to overlook and what I was met with on a number of occasions when I've been at conferences or other things where I've spoken about the Belt and Road Initiative is a denial in a sense of the geopolitical consequences of all these activities. A sense that, yeah, it's purely commercial and economic and everybody wins. But the reality is even ventures that are entered into that have a principally economic rationale create winners and losers. Think of gentrification in a city. You're redeveloping a neighborhood but some people will no longer be able to live there and probably will go away angry from it.

[00:19:24] Well, you extrapolate from that to the global stage and you'll find that for every project, whether it's a new deepwater port at Gwadar. What happens to the fishermen who live nearby? They get forced out. And there are many other similar examples in terms of China's trade and commercial activities in countries like Iran or Kazakhstan or elsewhere, where local industries will fail because Chinese industries will dominate.

[00:19:52] Ultimately, you can say there are no productivity gains and efficiency gains. But the politics of that, the politics of the distribution of wealth become critical in terms of understanding the rise of certain interest groups, the fall of others. Even the rise of nations will be affected by this, and that's what I wanted to focus on. And I think that had gotten too little attention in terms of certainly the way China characterized its Belt and Road Initiative. And I wanted to shine a brighter light on that.

John Gans [00:20:19] That's great. And, you know, you cover China's relationship through the one belt, one road, and then and then more broadly, with a lot of countries, Pakistan, the United States, Iran. You mentioned work relationships, and one which hasn't come up yet is the China India relationship or lack thereof. So what's the latest on the China-India altercation at the border and is it a good example, this latest news, of the book's thesis?

Daniel Markey [00:20:52] Yeah, China is having some trouble working with India. And you're right, this latest crisis along their border, the line of actual control that has separated them but hasn't been fully demarcated in ways that the two sides agree on since, you know, since their independence founding. And has now, most recently over the past couple of months led to bloodshed, which is actually quite unusual. You know, normally the two will have these patrols, military patrols along this boundary line. They might stray into each other's territory. Typically, they would signal to one another to to go back to their side and it would get resolved at that level or at somewhat higher level without people dying.

[00:21:36] This time it seems that that clearly went out the window. And there's been skirmishing, not so much with modern tools of war, but with old fashioned things like bats and wire covered bats and things like that. Pretty atrocious stuff. And both sides seem to have suffered casualties. This led to a national outcry in India. But there's a broader story at work here, which is that both sides are basically building up their border defenses along this line. And in doing so and bringing more forces to the line and being increasingly concerned about how the other side is entrenching its military capabilities along this line, they're more likely to come to blows. People have noticed this for at least a decade now and have been somewhat worried about it. This is a tough terrain to fight in. It's possible that a lot of the people that died in this latest skirmish died from from the extreme conditions more than just being beaten up. But this relates first and foremost to the kind of the efforts by two rising powers to firm up their boundary and to make sure that the other side, doesn't kind of steal some sort of tactical or strategic advantage when it comes to military access. Again, in a tough part of the world.

[00:22:58] But then there's this broader story, which is two rising powers that goes much beyond their shared border, but to questions of regional ambition, and its ambition in South Asia has been to be the dominant player and to not see a country and external power, whether it's China or really anybody else, become the dominant player in the region. But China's rise has made it so. Not least in terms of its relationship with Pakistan, probably have to start there, but also in its dealings with other countries in the region, from Nepal to Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and so on. So India was feeling that pressure. And you now have a government under Prime Minister Modi that's somewhat more aggressive, certainly more kind of macho, chauvinist, nationalistic. You can pick your own terms, but wants to push back and make sure that it doesn't get pushed around by the Chinese. And so the consequence of that is again, yes, similar to other stories in the book, a localized story. China doesn't get to have its way in its region, in its neighborhood, and it's dealing with India. And this will have a consequence to pull back even one step again in terms of being broader. This will have a consequence in terms of the US China global competition, because as I think many people appreciate, the United States has really invested in India as a partner. A strategic partner, in part because it believes that India will be useful in countering China's rise at some level. And so we may be seeing pieces of that playing out here as well.

[00:24:36] Last point on this, I think it's important that we not overstate any particular up or down in the India-China relationship, because India, like other countries in the world, has a lot of economic interests in having some kind of persisting relationship with China in terms of trade and investment and otherwise. And so, over the years, we've seen a bit of an up and down. India is clearly worried about China and its strategic intentions, but it also recognizes China as a huge engine of economic growth and power that has to be dealt with one way or the other, just as everybody else in the world sees China in this way. So we shouldn't see the latest crisis indicative necessarily of future trajectory, but it says something about the obstacles that China faces in its own neighborhood.

John Gans [00:25:27] Excellent. All right. And then a little brief question, because the book is out from Oxford University Press, right? And it's available everywhere?

Daniel Markey [00:25:35] Everywhere! All your favorite places, whatever that might be.

John Gans [00:25:40] So just quickly, what was your favorite part about writing it?

Daniel Markey [00:25:43] Favorite part about writing the book? You know, I have a favorite part about researching the book, which was my trip to Kazakhstan where I hadn't been before, and up to the Kazakhstan border with China. It is this kind of strange place kind of in the middle of nowhere, which is now becoming a largely Chinese built city along their border. And it's just a fascinating window into a part of the world where I hadn't seen it before, didn't know what to expect. I was somewhat surprised by a few of the things I saw and I mentioned in the book how most of the items on sale on the Chinese side of the border, because you can cross across the border into sort of a free trade zone. Most of things I saw had to do with I mentioned in the book, iPhones and fur coats, because apparently Kazakhstanis seeing these as important things, not least as gifts that new Kazakhstani brides want from their husbands. So they need the iPhone and they need a fur coat. And those are plentiful along this border. Also, I remember a lot of alcohol shops. Not sure if that's a coincidence, it can get cold up there. But we have all kinds of strange sort of Soviet era-style bottles and things like that. So that was kind of fun.

[00:27:07] The other piece of the book that I had mentioned had to do with the writing. Two times when I was kind of stuck overseas in very different places, once for a few days in Hong Kong and once for a few days in Tel Aviv. And being on the ground, basically being away from my family and having late nights of just kind of jamming on writing. And at the time it was really painful. I was somewhat jet lag, which is probably I was up in the middle of the night. But in retrospect, it was a memorable writing experience and not something I'm looking forward to doing again. But something that was really important to the book and getting it done. So, yeah, those are some memorable experiences from the process.

John Gans [00:27:54] And needless to say, as authors everywhere struggling to get their chapters written, surrounded by family and stuck in their homes, you know, you may be jealous hearing about the experience of isolation in waiting.

Daniel Markey [00:28:09] Right, yeah.

John Gans [00:28:15] Almost 300 years ago, one of Penn's first trustees, Ben Franklin, who I don't think ever made it to Kazakhstan. But developed a questionnaire he used for conversations among fellow Philadelphians interested in current and global affairs. We've updated it for our use today to anchor our Global Cable Podcast. So these are sort of short questions that can have short answers. So the first is, who would you most like to meet today and why?

Daniel Markey [00:28:45] You know, I'm not entirely sure, but I think I'd kind of like to have a chance to sit down with  China's President, Xi Jinping. You know, I don't think I'd actually get that much out of that experience except to say that I had done it and also that I might just be able to pick up one or two pieces of what makes a guy like that tick. I'm just very curious. He's held it at a distance in a way that, you know, a lot of Western leaders, we kind of get them. We get more than enough of them. But somebody like that, I'd be curious just to see what he's like as a human being. So that'd be my pick.

John Gans [00:29:23] So that's a first for us here on The Global Cable.

Daniel Markey [00:29:31] And let it be said, this is not because I admire the man or have positive feelings, but I find it fascinating.

John Gans [00:29:37] Everybody else would cheat and pick somebody like Winston Churchill who is dead.

Daniel Markey [00:29:41] Ah okay, somebody dead. Yeah no, that is cheating.

John Gans [00:29:44] Have you recently read any books or articles, seen any movies or documentaries or listen to any podcast or, you know, music related to world affairs that might interest our listeners and might get them to download buy something new?

Daniel Markey [00:30:05] I would recommend a book by a former colleague of mine. The Kill Chain by Chris Brose. Maybe you've come across it.

John Gans [00:30:13] I've seen it, yeah.

Daniel Markey [00:30:15] So I've started reading it. I'm about halfway through. It's a quick read, so I can commend it on that. Chris is a skilled writer, was a speechwriter, worked for McCain on the Senate side. But I met him when he was working at the State Department. It's a pretty terrifying characterization of the state of the US military with respect to its ability to compete with China into the future. It pulls a lot of the pieces of the sort of the dysfunctional means by which the United States procures its weapons and other platforms, so to speak. Pulls all those pieces together in a pretty bite size, but as I say, terrifying conclusion, which is, you know, despite having spent a crazy amount of money, we're not well prepared for that conflict because we've made some really bad choices. And, you know, the reasons behind these choices are actually where the complexity lies and where the politics lies more than just a question of people doing the wrong thing for the wrong reasons. But the consequences of all of this, the scale magnitude of the consequences, this is really frightening. So I think it's a great read. Something important to think about.

John Gans [00:31:38] That's great. All right. So do you know of any individuals in the United States or elsewhere other than Chris Brose who deserve imitation?

Daniel Markey [00:31:47] And John Gans, of course. Yes.

John Gans [00:31:50] Thank you.

Daniel Markey [00:31:51] Well, you know, first of all, don't know these people's names, but it's just an example of something that I saw recently that I liked. I was watching a news clip out of Pakistani television news. And typically, there's nothing to like about that. I mean, I could go on at length, but the two newscasters were somewhat distanced from one another sitting out there, pretty standard anchor desks, and they were both wearing masks. And given the moment that we're living in right now, you know, shielding their noses and their mouths from making other people sick was exactly the right message. For a country like Pakistan, it's essential that they do what little they can to try to slow the spread of the virus. I wish that we saw that more frequently on American television, even just symbolically, I think, be a really positive step. So that's something I think we should imitate.

John Gans [00:32:56] That sounds good. Last question. Is there anything Penn or Penn students, most importantly, can do at this crazy critical moment in world history?

Daniel Markey [00:33:06] Well, they should be safe and smart and the way that they go about things, we're all in a crazy experiment for how to run universities that are in the midst of a pandemic. I fear that this is going to have long lasting consequences for lots of American institutions, but American universities are something that's near and dear to my heart. And I worry about their future economically and otherwise. And if this coming fall is a disastrous experiment in moving too quickly and bringing people back, students not behaving in ways that are safe for themselves and others, then we've got a big problem. And then the other piece of it is, you know, the Trump administration is making some terrible decisions about visa policy and international students. And to the extent that University of Pennsylvania can push hard along with other schools, I know Johns Hopkins is, I think others are as well to try to reverse some of these decisions about kicking international students out if schools go online.This is the kind of thing that really requires a strong political effort, lobbying and otherwise, to reverse and encourage people to do that.

John Gans [00:34:21] That's great. It's great. Well, we appreciate you joining us here on The Global Cable and look forward to seeing you soon. Thanks so much, Dan, for joining us.

Daniel Markey [00:34:29] Thanks, John. I had a great time.