My talk at the Atlantic Council in Washington, DC.

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countries and how they perceive China and Chinese

engagement. Three minutes, right?

This feels like a sports

show. I was ready for a stock market

breakdown and wish this was a coffee.

Very quickly, I have some

signpostings that I look forward to discuss

later on with the panel. I mean, first of all,

and this is kind of a preview of an upcoming book of mine

with Melbourne University Press. First of all,

what we're seeing is a kind of a 50 shades of

hedging and agency as far as

Southeast Asia is concerned. I think

yesterday, there was a lot of discussion about

agency and strategic autonomy,

et cetera, but clearly, it's a spectral

thing. When you talk about

countries like Laos, for instance, their situation

is tremendously different from a country like the

Philippines, for instance. And Singapore,

we had our good friend Bilhari also there.

They have also their own kind of degree

of strategic agency and hedging.

Now, speaking of hedging, of course,

I have my own ideas

about this. We can discuss this later on.

I believe there's also some limitation to how

much hedging you can do or what I

call strategic polyamory.

At some point, countries

will have to make choices because not making

a choice is a choice in itself

and it has costs and sometimes

it's a privilege that some countries cannot afford.

So, I come from a country called the

Philippines. We're very close to Taiwan

where a U.S. treaty ally. We cannot be

neutral on issues like Taiwan, for instance,

right, and what's happening there. So, we're

adjusting accordingly. And also, what you

see in the region is wild swings,

not only among countries, but within countries.

I mean, I used to be here almost every month

back in the day when Duterte was the president.

Trump was the president. I had

one book on each of them. Now, things

are very, very different. And ironically, under

Marcus Jr., which we all feared will be

the next big dictator, but things have turned out very

well, interestingly, in the right direction.

But then again, you cannot say

for sure what's going to happen to countries like the

Philippines in the next coming years or after

Marcus Jr. steps down from office

in 2020. So, there's a lot of what I

call strategic indeterminacy,

right? That's why it's a very fluid

picture. And speaking of fluidity, and this will be my last

point because I think my three minutes is almost over,

I don't think the region is really

bipolar. I find it intellectually

impoverished when I say it's a U.S.-China

competition. If you look at the infrastructure

development landscape, China has been

engaging in what I call pledge trap,

not debt trap. A lot of

pledges, and they get a lot of PR

bang out of their imaginary buck.

I mean, they're really good capitalists

as far as PR is concerned.

In the Philippines, I mean, they offered

$24 billion in investments to Duterte.

I'm still watching for $100 million

to come in. It's already 2024.

Last time I checked. And, you know, when

Marcos went back there last year, they just repackaged

the same thing minus the few millions that got

in, right? Put a little bit of renewables

here and there. It's actually Japan

which leads the infrastructure development picture.

The metro underground system in Manila

is being developed by Japan. If you look at

Vietnam, Philippines, a lot of key countries in the region,

Japan trounces China

by far, even in terms of just

pledges. So, even in pledges, China

is not necessarily ahead. So, we tend to forget

Japan because it's a stealth power

in many ways. So, I see the

region more like, you know, my understanding of the region

is geopolitics is like German politics.

You have two dominant parties, SPD

and CSU and

CDU, but the third parties,

the smaller parties, can determine the direction

of the flow. And that's

why India is important, Japan is important,

South Korea is important, and European

partners who are getting more engaged in this part of the world

are important. Thank you. Okay, let's

turn to the Pacific,

Pacific Island countries.

Duveri, give us an overview. I mean,

even within the Pacific, there's sort of

three distinct sub-regions

with very different

relationships with

China as well as other partners. Can you give

us an overview of that

region? I think there has to be also sometimes

honest conversations. Like, I know

you guys, you don't want to make choices,

you want to make the most out of this, but push

comes to shove, right?

Who do you think is really the threat to you in the region?

Last time I checked, the U.S. doesn't have maritime

territorial disputes with Vietnam, with the

Philippines. My goodness, even the Indonesians

have problems with China right now because there are nine

lines going all the way to North Matuna Sea.

So the reality has to be reminded

that, you know, China may

sound more understanding and all of that,

but you have some fundamental

territorial and maritime issues that you don't have with

us Americans. You can talk about what happened 100

or 50 years ago and all of that.

That's important because I think the global

South, now I want to go back to our title,

the global South discourse is weaponized

by China consistently

to push their own version. But believe

me, their understanding of multipolarity

is not the same as us in ASEAN.

For us, multipolarity is more agency,

more room for conversation, and inclusive

pluralistic international order.

China's version of multipolarity is

post-American, more Pax Sinica.

So we have to be absolutely clear about that

and push back against the weaponization

of the post-colonial discourse. Thank you.

Thank you. Well, we are

over time, so we have China. I mean, certainly

you mentioned infrastructure.

China's Belt and Road and other

initiatives in Southeast Asia have delivered

a tremendous amount of

infrastructure that's been very welcomed by

China.

By many governments. Less delivery

in the Philippines.

But, you know, how do

these countries

view, and what are the interesting

differences among countries, and how they

view China's

offers of infrastructure

and other kinds of things?

And then what are

concrete ways that countries view

other partners as alternatives?

Well, I mean, yesterday we had folks from

Africa Barometer looking at very important

data and numbers. I think

in case of Southeast Asia, I mean, of course,

we have the Pew surveys, Gallup,

among others. But I suggest really folks to check

the Institute for Southeast Asian Studies

annual surveys of influential

folks. I mean, they tend

to ask the policymaker and thought leaders

about their ideas about who are the most preferred

partners, what are the pros and cons

of that. I mean, consistently we see Japan

and the European Union coming on top

of others. I mean, there's

strategic skepticism, both

towards China and the BRI, but also to a

certain degree towards the United States.

So if you look at the views

of the U.S., it increased

significantly when Biden came into power, but

now things are tapering off a little bit.

So I think we have a lot of data

and numbers that shows that not only

countries do not see it as purely

bipolar, they actively want

other players like Japan and

the European Union to be involved here.

Now, of course, as far as

U.S. and its network of allies

is concerned, then things can get more interesting,

right? Because Japan can coordinate it with

the United States. India sometimes can

coordinate it with Japan and the U.S. So in that sense,

as much as China is very influential,

I mean, I'm not being dismissive towards some of the

big projects. I mean, they have very big profile

projects, whether it's the railway, high-speed railway

project in Laos, whether it's the Bandung-Jakarta

finally finished in Indonesia.

But, you know, they get a lot of bang

out of that box, right? The limited

but big-ticket projects. But you see,

we want other countries to be involved here.

And we see that, for instance, India now is becoming

a very big player on the defense front.

They're about to deploy the

supersonic BrahMos missile system.

Some of them have even Russian technological derivative

there. But the Indians

just sent a very big delegation to the Philippines.

So they're looking at Vietnam. They're looking at Philippines.

They're looking at a number of countries in the region

where they can build a big defense

market. What's important

here is the shadow of the future, right?

So if we were to have this conversation

three, four, five years ago, the assumption was

China's going to overtake the United States by this time.

So that structured

people's strategic moves

and expectations. Now that

the discourse is, not that China's going to

collapse, but China's not going to really,

you know, China's almost peaking,

suddenly people are looking, okay, who are the

other rising powers? Like, and this is where India

comes in. Or what are the other players

that have not been as appreciated

even if they don't have that upward trajectory?

Let's look at Europe. Let's look at France, what they can offer.

Or South Koreans, who have

been also very much on the upward

trajectory. I mean, South Korea now is one of the largest

exporter of defense equipment.

And a number of countries in the Middle East, whether it's Turkey, among

others. So what I'm saying here is that

the strategic horizons of South

Asian countries have expanded, and they

actively want that expansion.

And if you look at the discussion in different

capitals in the region, they don't sit down and say what

U.S. and China think. They're looking at how

can we leverage our position

while we're building our capabilities.

But last point on this, my sense is

I was in the ASEAN meetings and summits

last year in Jakarta. My sense is

if you look at key countries like Indonesia,

their understanding is time is on our side

actually, perhaps even more than

China. Because demographically

we're in a good position. We're all,

so since last year, several

ASEAN countries are going faster than China,

Philippines, Vietnam. Their idea is give

us 10, 20, 30 years, we're all going to be

full-fledged middle power at the very

least. And Indonesia may even vie

for something bigger. So let's play it safe,

let's not do something crazy,

let's build our capacity, get everything

from other side, and in 20 years we're going to

have interesting conversations with these big guys.

Because we're going to be quite big ourselves.

So clearly that applies to Indonesia,

clearly that applies to Vietnam, and hopefully

Philippines down the road. And it's very interesting.

That Indonesia

snubbed the bricks because it wants

to join the club of OECD.

So when a country as vital as Indonesia,

third largest democracy,

largest Muslim majority country says,

no, I want to be in the club of OECD countries,

that tells you about what deep inside

they're thinking about. They're all of this conversation

of anti-Western conversation, global

South conversation, but a lot of us

actually want to be part of OECD if you look at the key

rising countries in that part of the world.

So that's where I think there's a lot of room for

the West to come in and build

constructive, good, forward

looking relationship. There is

a ship on our shoulders because whether it's Philippines

and Indonesia, we had certain interaction in the past

to put it mildly, which we're not

optimal. But it's not like the Chinese are doing

a good job too, right? By elbowing

their way through. So I think now the field is

open, it's exciting, it's fluid.

And that's why I find South Asia quite an interesting

part of the world. I used to

write a lot about the Middle East and other parts

of the world. I was bored with ASEAN. But nowadays,

I think this is the sexiest part of the world

as far as geopolitical dynamism is concerned.

Very optimistic. Well, both

of you, I think, have painted a picture

that's an important theme to