In putting together firstclass programs looking at the region and particularly chinas role in it and todays program countering china in the indo pacific is very much in keeping with his the thrust of his work here at the Hudson Institute. So congratulations on bringing this to fruition. And hes also assembled an absolutely firstrate gripe of group of experts. Starting immediately from my left in the order they will in , richard, currently taiwan, has just completed a new book and hell touch a bit on that. Hes one of the foremost authorities on Southeast Asia and the philippines and particularly the philippinechina relationship. To his left, just returned to washington to become the head of the u. S. Effort of the Observer Research foundation. I first met him almost 30 years ago in japan. Delighted to see how youve developed into an absolute firstclass institute leader, but also a scholar and analyst on the region. And i met today lisolette, a senior fellow here at the institute. Whats terrific about having her here is her work, as i was doing the background work, is really icks up the u. S. China u. S. , china and europe threat. I think its more salient as we look at postbrexit u. K. And we look atle the role of france and other at the role of france and other european states in the indo pacific and look forward to hearing from her. And of course our chair and leader of this effort. So, format is very simple. Three of our presenters have a power point presentation. Theyll make their case. And then well go one rep through the other and then open it up for a qy and a and each of them will speak for an allotted amount of time. Ill try to catch their attention to keep them on schedule so that we can give maximum time to you to ask questions and make comments from the floor. With that, again, thank you for joining us. Richard, may i invite you, please. Yes. Hes very hightech so he has a phone keeping track of his time. Ill try to behave myself. Thank you very much. Good morning. Its a pleasure. I hope im my usual energetic version. Im still halfway into a five or six country speaking tour right now. Its a pleasure to be here in Hudson Institute. Its one of the places i love because i feel i dont need to be very politically correct when it comes to discussions of china. My experience in speaking across the region is that i have to be always much more careful about my language, sometimes you use assertiveness rather than aggression. Here i feel i can be more free flowing and more myself. You can imagine why im not very popular amongst some friends in southeast airborne yafment im also very indebted to Hudson Institute. I just finished a book on indo pacific. I think its the first book. Its around 400 pages based on 10 years of writing and experience across the indo pacific. My dad comes from the caspian region. My mom comes from Southeast Asia. More or less ethnically i covered the indo pacific. Ive written books and written a lot about the regions. , try to bring them together particularly under the Trump Administration and how were going move forward. We gave a presentation last year on indo pacific and Southeast Asias place in that and that presentation we had here really helped me to put the final touches to the book. The more politically correct term was chinas [indiscernible] to germany. I think premature pretty much puts it where i need it to be put. The question also right now is how do we preserve peace and stability in the indo pacific and this is not about confronting china per se or excluding china but how to make sure that we manage the rise of china in ways that is mutually acceptable and mutually beneficial. This is the book, sorry, it was too fresh, i couldnt bring copies. Maybe early next year i can come back for a proper book tour on that. When it comes tonding whats happening in the pacific, particularly in the asiapacific, i think there are two figures that help me a lot to frame the question and possible answer. One is, of course, the late singaporian leader. He was not right on everything but i think he got china very much right and he was the bridge between the west and the east, especially when it comes to engagement with china and the other one, is of course, one of my favorite philosophers, walter. These are the two that are think are very important for us to keep in mind. One of the observations made that made a huge impression on me was that the rise of china, especially for us in Southeast Asia, is so dramatic that its not going to only require tactical balance of power adjustment. Its going to change the system itself. Because of the sheer size and influence and ambition of china. This is going to change the game and were starting to feel that right now. Walter also talked about how behind every fascism theres a failed revolution. Now, im not saying that china is a fascist. But what im trying to say here is that i think the confrontation and the tensions that we see today in east asia is also very much a product of our inability to create perpetual peace to strong institutions that will preserve pacifist and dialoguebased intersection. This is where coming from Southeast Asia, im also slightly critical of us aian. I feel we could do a much better job in ensuring we negotiate a great power relationship with much more prerogativeness and willingness which were not doing. To defend, because i tend to get misunderstood on this issue, it has achieved a lot. If youre familiar with Southeast Asian geopolitics, in the 1960s, for instance, controversy was the name of the game. Ar among core countries was almost inevitable in the eyes of some people. I remember going to the wikileaks cable and in one of the cables i saw Something Interesting that a Senior Administration in malaysia asked a foreign minister to talk to britain for britain to talk to kissinger, for kissinger to talk to nixon, for nixon to talk to marcus, the dictator of the philippines back then, not to invade malaysia over this issue. So in the late 1960s the question of war was very much in the air. 50 years forward, the notion of war or even the threat of use of war among Southeast Asiaia Asian Countries is almost unthinkable. Thats a huge achievement itself. We have established a kind of Security Community among ourselves. Whereby even the threat of war, despite impending and lingering territorial disputes, is unthinkable. Its not that were short of conflicts, intention, but were and tensions, but were definitely not short on ways to manth disputes ourselves. It was also able to finalize a Free Trade Agreement way ahead of time, of schedule. Bringing down [indiscernible] to zoreo and it made us so ambitious we thought we could make an Economic Community by 2015. We missed the mark but we move forward quite quickly on that issue. Asian countries have also been effective in pushing for nontraditional Security Cooperation, whether antipiracy, counterterrorism and most recently, after the southern philippines and others have been doing coordinated trilateral patrols to make sure that isis elements will not enter especially philippines areas and were having more intelligence sharing and Cooperation Among chris. A lot has happened here but above all what it has to offer is convening power. The ability to bring big powers together, including sometimes north korea. If you look at the Asian Regional Forum skgs discussions. So they can talk. Better jawjaw than warwar. As someone who has spent time in the middle east, i could say that i really prefer what we have in Southeast Asia than the game of thrones situation they have there. I think even game of thrones doesnt capture whats happening there in the persian gulf. I think the illusions here is that the asian, the effectiveness that we had in creating a Security Community among ourselves, smaller countries, will also be able to be as effective in terms of socializing other great powers to internalize our principles of how to deal with our problems and interstate tensions. The reality, though, is that the asian i think has a fundamental misunderstanding of some of its own key principles. The two key principles are [indiscernible] consultation and consensus, but in the asian, our understanding of consensus is unanimity. If you look at it particularly on questions of security, politics and human rights. Unanimity is a very problematic way of understanding it because, a, unanimity means every country effectively has a veto power. And b, if youre an external power whodunit want us aian to be united on an issue, all you need to do is to exert pressure and lean on one of members of the asean regardless of the degree of concern that asean country in order to sabotage ewe unity. I dont blame them if theres sometimes seen as saab tours. Because from their point of view, saab tours. Because from their point of view, why should we risk pistonsing off the chinese who are a major source of investment and diplomatic support when we have nothing in the South China Sea disputes. I remember well the Prime Minister in 2015 right before the philippine arbitration award against china came out, he said, this is a political issue. We dont want to do anything about it. So this is a problem whereby you dont have weighted majority voting, you dont have majority voting. You have unanimity Decision Making. Youre asking for trouble. My term for that is middle income trout or a middle aged trout. The kind of Decision Making process that allows the asean to create peace among ourselves over the past 50 years is no longer effective in terms of creating peace among major powers. That is also today affecting us very much. This is very much related to the indo pacific discussion. And this is where asean is increasingly moving from centrality to something else. The reality is that while the asean is struggling, china is changing facts on the ground. Lets be clear about that. Over the past two or three years, chinas deployed surface missiles, admiral davidson calls it a great wall of sams. Electronic jam equipment, Nuclear Capable bombers, the chinese coast guard now is the extension of the p. L. A. Navy. We see more military forces from china pushing the envelope and engaging in aggressive action against countries across the region. So, the level of diplomatic dine mitchell of asean is not catching up with the facts on the ground. While were talking about a code of conduct with china, china is changing fast on the ground on a daily basis. So while were wasting our time in negotiations, which by the way were not even sure its going to be legally binding, were not going to be sure if its going to be legally binding, whose interpretation of International Law, facts on the ground are changing. Nonetheless, my message here is one of cautious optimism. My message is that there are reasons to be skeptical. I come from the philippines, one of our icons if im going to use boxing as a metaphor, i think were in round four and hes going to do to round 12, if not more. Why . The first reason is i think americas power and the resilience of its power and influence in asia has been underestimated. If you look at much more observant analysis of americas power, for instance, i think michael bigly has done a good beckley has done a good job. Talking about net power. A lot of people think china is take over because their g. D. P. Size is so large but the countrys power is not just the growth size of your economy. Its your net power and ecological resources and human capital. The Living Standard of your people. How much power you can deploy. The technology you dispose of. If you look at the data over the past 20 years, youre not seeing much convergence between china and the United States. U. S. Has to grow only 3 or 4 to match chinas 10 growth because the base of americas economy is much larger. If you look at cutting edge technology, u. S. Is still way ahead. There is a very interesting observation by people including that everyone is panicking about china creating one million scientists per year but the question is the quality of scientists. A lot of people have vocational training. What is their citation rate . Quality very much matters where you talk about net power and competition. This is very interesting. People were asked across asiapacific, who do you still prefer to be the worlds leader . U. S. Still comes on top. It despite the fact that there have been some doubts about the Trump Administration, the unprohibit county of the new american president , unpredictability of the new american president , the u. S. Is still someone they trust to be the leader. For more cynical people, its the devil we know, thats the perspective they have. When this is a survey, people were asked about chinas initiative. Actually majority were skeptical about this. So while [indiscernible] welcome chinas investment, with the exception perhaps of the Prime Minister and well talk about that later on, the reality is that behind this theres a lot of skepticism among experts, governing officials and people underground. The other thing is we also have to put things into context. Theres a lot of criticism about President Trumps supposedly ditching the t. P. P. , weakening american position in this part of the world. On for a lot of countries the front line of chinas assertiveness or aggression, the u. S. Is even more reliable than the Obama Administration. For instance, if you look at the freedom of navigation operation, theyre much more regular and expansive and extending to areas like the scarborough shore. U. S. Is using more advanced warships. Youre seeing more pushback. Despite diplomatic tensions between the countries like the philippines and United States er the past three years, the Foreign Military fanning from the u. S. Has more than doubled o the philippines. More than any indo pacific country, more than any time in the history of philippineu. S. Military cooperation since the second world war. More interestingly, you also see more presence by the u. S. Coast guard. We were just in halifax the other day and i got to catch up with the admiral who is the head of the u. S. Coast guard. Since last year, you know, we have to acknowledge that the u. S. Coast guard is doing a great job of doing their own version of joint exercises with regional coast guard commands and helping Capacity Building among countries in Southeast Asia. These are very important things. But the second thing i have to emphasize is that everyone talks about, we have a dichotomy whereby china dominates economy and u. S. Dominates security. Its way more complicated. Lets look at the frontier of geopolitical competition which is Infrastructure Development. If you look at Infrastructure Development, especially in Southeast Asia, china is not the one leading. Its japan. If you look at data. And this is where i always make this comment. China get more bang out of imaginary bucks sometimes. Theyre better salesmen than any other countries in this part of the world. This is an Interesting Data that came out and bloomberg made a very interesting report on that. If you look at Southeast Asia, japan has more Infrastructure Development projects. Thats on top of the fact that japan has already been the leading source of Infrastructure Development and overseas Development Assistance in Southeast Asia. I think a lot of us are underestimating the predominance, the economic predominance of japan in east asia, although of course in terms of trade and investment flows china has been taking over over the past 15 years. More importantly, if you look at Key Countries in Southeast Asia and countries in the South China Sea like vietnam and the philippines, by far japan is the top investor in infrastructure. In the philippines, for instance, out of the top big ticket Infrastructure Projects of china, not a single one has cleared the preliminary phases. One or two has done it but im not sure 60 million is considered a big ticket project. More than that, a lot of these prongs could have immensely negative Economic Impacts on age didge news to peoples and communities in the area on Indigenous Peoples and communities in the area. Its much more problematic. If you look at vietnam, its fascinating that japan is way ahead of china, in terms of overall investment. So you have 74 projects by japan in vietnam versus 24 by japan. If you look at who is the rising power in Southeast Asia, without question that is vietnam. Theyre leading the fight in terms of drawing the line in the South China Sea. Here again you see clearly in vietnam and in the philippines, china japan is well ahead in terms of