The Heat’s Nathan King interviewed former U.S. treasury secretary Henry Paulson and asked him two more questions about his thoughts about China’s president Xi Jinping and the current international dispute over islands in the South China Sea. Here’s his response:

“I don’t think ever in the history of the world, have you seen someone trying to make so much change, in such a massive scale. To me it’s just extraordinary when you look at everything from rebooting the economy so that the markets will be decisive, changing the urbanization model, the stunningly broad and pervasive anti-corruption campaign… in modernizing government,” Paulson said.

“So you have to be impressed that he not only has tried to do all this, laid out the vision, but taking personal responsibility for it. But the job is a very, very difficult one, and I think he’s got some significant challenges ahead of him.”

On his views on the tensions in the South China Sea, Paulson said he’s concerned:

“I’d like to answer that more broadly because I think that these territorial disputes and tensions have been around for a long time. I think there’s great concern right now in the U.S. about the islands that are being built up in China in that area,” Paulson said. “The first thing I think about is the whole region has benefited from economic integration and I’m starting to believe that the security tensions have got the potential to undermine that economic integration and be a negative for the region.”