00:18.2
with Melbourne University Press. First of all,
00:20.3
what we're seeing is a kind of a 50 shades of
00:22.1
hedging and agency as far as
00:24.0
Southeast Asia is concerned. I think
00:25.9
yesterday, there was a lot of discussion about
00:28.3
agency and strategic autonomy,
00:30.2
et cetera, but clearly, it's a spectral
00:32.3
thing. When you talk about
00:34.2
countries like Laos, for instance, their situation
00:36.3
is tremendously different from a country like the
00:38.2
Philippines, for instance. And Singapore,
00:40.2
we had our good friend Bilhari also there.
00:42.1
They have also their own kind of degree
00:44.2
of strategic agency and hedging.
00:46.4
Now, speaking of hedging, of course,
00:47.8
I have my own ideas
00:50.2
about this. We can discuss this later on.
00:52.2
I believe there's also some limitation to how
00:54.2
much hedging you can do or what I
00:56.3
call strategic polyamory.
00:58.3
At some point, countries
01:00.2
will have to make choices because not making
01:02.2
a choice is a choice in itself
01:04.1
and it has costs and sometimes
01:06.1
it's a privilege that some countries cannot afford.
01:08.3
So, I come from a country called the
01:10.1
Philippines. We're very close to Taiwan
01:11.9
where a U.S. treaty ally. We cannot be
01:14.1
neutral on issues like Taiwan, for instance,
01:16.1
right, and what's happening there. So, we're
01:18.0
adjusting accordingly. And also, what you
01:20.1
see in the region is wild swings,
01:22.0
not only among countries, but within countries.
01:24.3
I mean, I used to be here almost every month
01:26.1
back in the day when Duterte was the president.
01:28.3
Trump was the president. I had
01:30.0
one book on each of them. Now, things
01:32.1
are very, very different. And ironically, under
01:34.2
Marcus Jr., which we all feared will be
01:36.1
the next big dictator, but things have turned out very
01:38.1
well, interestingly, in the right direction.
01:40.5
But then again, you cannot say
01:41.8
for sure what's going to happen to countries like the
01:44.1
Philippines in the next coming years or after
01:45.9
Marcus Jr. steps down from office
01:48.3
in 2020. So, there's a lot of what I
01:50.1
call strategic indeterminacy,
01:52.3
right? That's why it's a very fluid
01:54.1
picture. And speaking of fluidity, and this will be my last
01:56.2
point because I think my three minutes is almost over,
01:58.3
I don't think the region is really
02:00.2
bipolar. I find it intellectually
02:02.3
impoverished when I say it's a U.S.-China
02:04.0
competition. If you look at the infrastructure
02:05.8
development landscape, China has been
02:08.1
engaging in what I call pledge trap,
02:10.3
not debt trap. A lot of
02:12.2
pledges, and they get a lot of PR
02:13.9
bang out of their imaginary buck.
02:16.3
I mean, they're really good capitalists
02:18.0
as far as PR is concerned.
02:20.1
In the Philippines, I mean, they offered
02:21.7
$24 billion in investments to Duterte.
02:24.3
I'm still watching for $100 million
02:26.1
to come in. It's already 2024.
02:28.3
Last time I checked. And, you know, when
02:30.1
Marcos went back there last year, they just repackaged
02:32.3
the same thing minus the few millions that got
02:34.1
in, right? Put a little bit of renewables
02:36.2
here and there. It's actually Japan
02:38.0
which leads the infrastructure development picture.
02:40.3
The metro underground system in Manila
02:42.1
is being developed by Japan. If you look at
02:44.0
Vietnam, Philippines, a lot of key countries in the region,
02:46.4
Japan trounces China
02:48.3
by far, even in terms of just
02:50.2
pledges. So, even in pledges, China
02:52.1
is not necessarily ahead. So, we tend to forget
02:54.2
Japan because it's a stealth power
02:56.3
in many ways. So, I see the
02:58.3
region more like, you know, my understanding of the region
03:00.3
is geopolitics is like German politics.
03:02.5
You have two dominant parties, SPD
03:06.3
CDU, but the third parties,
03:08.4
the smaller parties, can determine the direction
03:10.1
of the flow. And that's
03:12.3
why India is important, Japan is important,
03:14.3
South Korea is important, and European
03:16.1
partners who are getting more engaged in this part of the world
03:18.3
are important. Thank you. Okay, let's
03:20.4
turn to the Pacific,
03:22.2
Pacific Island countries.
03:24.7
Duveri, give us an overview. I mean,
03:26.4
even within the Pacific, there's sort of
03:28.3
three distinct sub-regions
03:30.9
with very different
03:32.4
relationships with
03:34.1
China as well as other partners. Can you give
03:36.5
us an overview of that
03:38.5
region? I think there has to be also sometimes
03:40.5
honest conversations. Like, I know
03:42.5
you guys, you don't want to make choices,
03:44.4
you want to make the most out of this, but push
03:46.5
comes to shove, right?
03:48.2
Who do you think is really the threat to you in the region?
03:50.4
Last time I checked, the U.S. doesn't have maritime
03:52.2
territorial disputes with Vietnam, with the
03:54.4
Philippines. My goodness, even the Indonesians
03:56.3
have problems with China right now because there are nine
03:58.3
lines going all the way to North Matuna Sea.
04:00.6
So the reality has to be reminded
04:02.1
that, you know, China may
04:04.1
sound more understanding and all of that,
04:06.4
but you have some fundamental
04:08.0
territorial and maritime issues that you don't have with
04:10.3
us Americans. You can talk about what happened 100
04:12.1
or 50 years ago and all of that.
04:14.5
That's important because I think the global
04:16.2
South, now I want to go back to our title,
04:18.5
the global South discourse is weaponized
04:20.6
by China consistently
04:21.9
to push their own version. But believe
04:24.5
me, their understanding of multipolarity
04:26.6
is not the same as us in ASEAN.
04:28.3
For us, multipolarity is more agency,
04:30.4
more room for conversation, and inclusive
04:32.4
pluralistic international order.
04:34.3
China's version of multipolarity is
04:35.9
post-American, more Pax Sinica.
04:38.5
So we have to be absolutely clear about that
04:40.4
and push back against the weaponization
04:42.5
of the post-colonial discourse. Thank you.
04:44.9
Thank you. Well, we are
04:46.2
over time, so we have China. I mean, certainly
04:48.3
you mentioned infrastructure.
04:50.6
China's Belt and Road and other
04:52.2
initiatives in Southeast Asia have delivered
04:54.4
a tremendous amount of
04:56.2
infrastructure that's been very welcomed by
04:58.3
By many governments. Less delivery
05:00.7
in the Philippines.
05:03.0
But, you know, how do
05:06.7
view, and what are the interesting
05:08.8
differences among countries, and how they
05:12.9
offers of infrastructure
05:14.9
and other kinds of things?
05:16.8
And then what are
05:18.2
concrete ways that countries view
05:20.6
other partners as alternatives?
05:23.3
Well, I mean, yesterday we had folks from
05:24.5
Africa Barometer looking at very important
05:26.9
data and numbers. I think
05:28.3
in case of Southeast Asia, I mean, of course,
05:30.8
we have the Pew surveys, Gallup,
05:32.8
among others. But I suggest really folks to check
05:34.6
the Institute for Southeast Asian Studies
05:36.3
annual surveys of influential
05:38.7
folks. I mean, they tend
05:40.8
to ask the policymaker and thought leaders
05:42.7
about their ideas about who are the most preferred
05:44.9
partners, what are the pros and cons
05:47.0
of that. I mean, consistently we see Japan
05:48.8
and the European Union coming on top
05:50.9
of others. I mean, there's
05:53.0
strategic skepticism, both
05:54.8
towards China and the BRI, but also to a
05:56.9
certain degree towards the United States.
05:58.3
So if you look at the views
06:00.5
of the U.S., it increased
06:02.5
significantly when Biden came into power, but
06:04.4
now things are tapering off a little bit.
06:06.6
So I think we have a lot of data
06:08.3
and numbers that shows that not only
06:10.4
countries do not see it as purely
06:12.2
bipolar, they actively want
06:14.3
other players like Japan and
06:16.3
the European Union to be involved here.
06:18.3
Now, of course, as far as
06:19.6
U.S. and its network of allies
06:22.5
is concerned, then things can get more interesting,
06:24.5
right? Because Japan can coordinate it with
06:26.3
the United States. India sometimes can
06:28.3
coordinate it with Japan and the U.S. So in that sense,
06:30.7
as much as China is very influential,
06:32.7
I mean, I'm not being dismissive towards some of the
06:34.4
big projects. I mean, they have very big profile
06:36.2
projects, whether it's the railway, high-speed railway
06:38.3
project in Laos, whether it's the Bandung-Jakarta
06:40.7
finally finished in Indonesia.
06:43.0
But, you know, they get a lot of bang
06:44.4
out of that box, right? The limited
06:46.2
but big-ticket projects. But you see,
06:48.3
we want other countries to be involved here.
06:50.5
And we see that, for instance, India now is becoming
06:52.4
a very big player on the defense front.
06:54.4
They're about to deploy the
06:56.5
supersonic BrahMos missile system.
06:58.3
Some of them have even Russian technological derivative
07:00.3
there. But the Indians
07:02.5
just sent a very big delegation to the Philippines.
07:04.6
So they're looking at Vietnam. They're looking at Philippines.
07:06.7
They're looking at a number of countries in the region
07:08.6
where they can build a big defense
07:10.6
market. What's important
07:12.6
here is the shadow of the future, right?
07:14.3
So if we were to have this conversation
07:16.2
three, four, five years ago, the assumption was
07:18.5
China's going to overtake the United States by this time.
07:21.1
So that structured
07:22.6
people's strategic moves
07:24.6
and expectations. Now that
07:26.5
the discourse is, not that China's going to
07:28.3
collapse, but China's not going to really,
07:30.5
you know, China's almost peaking,
07:32.6
suddenly people are looking, okay, who are the
07:34.4
other rising powers? Like, and this is where India
07:36.4
comes in. Or what are the other players
07:38.4
that have not been as appreciated
07:40.3
even if they don't have that upward trajectory?
07:42.3
Let's look at Europe. Let's look at France, what they can offer.
07:45.0
Or South Koreans, who have
07:46.5
been also very much on the upward
07:48.2
trajectory. I mean, South Korea now is one of the largest
07:50.3
exporter of defense equipment.
07:52.3
And a number of countries in the Middle East, whether it's Turkey, among
07:54.3
others. So what I'm saying here is that
07:56.4
the strategic horizons of South
07:58.2
Asian countries have expanded, and they
08:00.4
actively want that expansion.
08:02.4
And if you look at the discussion in different
08:04.2
capitals in the region, they don't sit down and say what
08:06.3
U.S. and China think. They're looking at how
08:08.2
can we leverage our position
08:09.5
while we're building our capabilities.
08:12.2
But last point on this, my sense is
08:14.3
I was in the ASEAN meetings and summits
08:16.2
last year in Jakarta. My sense is
08:18.3
if you look at key countries like Indonesia,
08:20.2
their understanding is time is on our side
08:22.4
actually, perhaps even more than
08:23.9
China. Because demographically
08:26.4
we're in a good position. We're all,
08:28.2
so since last year, several
08:30.2
ASEAN countries are going faster than China,
08:32.1
Philippines, Vietnam. Their idea is give
08:34.2
us 10, 20, 30 years, we're all going to be
08:36.2
full-fledged middle power at the very
08:38.3
least. And Indonesia may even vie
08:40.2
for something bigger. So let's play it safe,
08:42.5
let's not do something crazy,
08:44.2
let's build our capacity, get everything
08:46.2
from other side, and in 20 years we're going to
08:48.2
have interesting conversations with these big guys.
08:50.3
Because we're going to be quite big ourselves.
08:52.4
So clearly that applies to Indonesia,
08:54.3
clearly that applies to Vietnam, and hopefully
08:56.3
Philippines down the road. And it's very interesting.
08:59.1
snubbed the bricks because it wants
09:02.3
to join the club of OECD.
09:04.1
So when a country as vital as Indonesia,
09:06.2
third largest democracy,
09:07.9
largest Muslim majority country says,
09:10.0
no, I want to be in the club of OECD countries,
09:12.4
that tells you about what deep inside
09:14.3
they're thinking about. They're all of this conversation
09:16.1
of anti-Western conversation, global
09:18.1
South conversation, but a lot of us
09:20.0
actually want to be part of OECD if you look at the key
09:22.0
rising countries in that part of the world.
09:24.2
So that's where I think there's a lot of room for
09:26.1
the West to come in and build
09:28.2
constructive, good, forward
09:30.4
looking relationship. There is
09:32.1
a ship on our shoulders because whether it's Philippines
09:34.0
and Indonesia, we had certain interaction in the past
09:36.2
to put it mildly, which we're not
09:37.9
optimal. But it's not like the Chinese are doing
09:40.0
a good job too, right? By elbowing
09:42.2
their way through. So I think now the field is
09:44.1
open, it's exciting, it's fluid.
09:46.3
And that's why I find South Asia quite an interesting
09:48.3
part of the world. I used to
09:49.8
write a lot about the Middle East and other parts
09:52.0
of the world. I was bored with ASEAN. But nowadays,
09:54.1
I think this is the sexiest part of the world
09:55.9
as far as geopolitical dynamism is concerned.
09:58.8
Very optimistic. Well, both
10:00.1
of you, I think, have painted a picture
10:01.5
that's an important theme to
