Endgame with Gita Wirjawan - Scot Marciel: US & ASEAN - Imperfect Partners

Episode Date: February 10, 2023

Does ASEAN truly matter? Is it still relevant? What important issues we must address at the upcoming summit? Join Scot Marciel, former US Ambassador to Myanmar and Indonesia, unravel the geopolitical evolution of the Southeast Asian countries and how it has been unfolding in their relationship with the US—hosted by Gita Wirjawan: entrepreneur, educator, and currently a visiting scholar at Stanford University at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC). Scot Marciel is an Oksenberg-Rohlen Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, as well as Visiting Scholar and Visiting Practitioner Fellow on Southeast Asia at APARC. He is widely considered the State Department’s top Southeast Asia hand and has a key role in shaping and implementing US policy. #Endgame #GitaWirjawan #ScotMarciel Recorded at Stanford University on October 27, 2022. ----------------- SGPP Indonesia Master of Public Policy March 2023 Intake: admissions.sgpp.ac.id | [e-mail] | https://wa.me/628111522504 Other "Endgame" episode Playlist: https://endgame.id/season2 | https://endgame.id/season1 | https://endgame.id/thetake Visit and subscribe: https://youtube.com/@SGPPIndonesia | https://youtube.com/@VisinemaPictures

I think the reality is that Aalzion, for all the good that it has done, and I do believe it's done a lot of good, has proven itself not very capable of addressing regional problems. If Southeast Asians see us as a reliable partner and a good partner economically based on a positive agenda, then we can have a good relationship with Southeast Asia. Recognizing Southeast Asians are also going to choose to have a good relationship with China. as they should. Hi, friends and fellows, welcome to this special series of conversations involving personalities coming from a number of campuses, including Stanford University. The purpose of the series is really to unleash

thought-provoking ideas that I think would be of tremendous value to you. I want to thank you for your support so far, and welcome to the special series. Hi, today we're visited by Scott Marciel, who is a visiting scholar at Stanford University, but he was formerly Deputy Assistant Secretary of the State Department, and also formerly the U.S. ambassador in Myanmar and also Indonesia. Scott, thank you so much coming on to our show.

Thanks, Peter. It's good to be here. I want to talk about many things with regards to Southeast Asia, which is something that's very familiar and close to your heart. But just tell us two to three minutes about how you got to the State Department And you grew up and got interested in international matters and how you fell in love with Southeast Asia or got to spend a lot of time in Southeast Asia. Yeah, sure. I grew up not far from Stanford just across the bay in a town called Fremont, went to school at University of California, Davis, again, not far from here, and decided to study international relations. This was back in the 1970s.

And the reason, like a lot of young people, I was idealistic, and I saw there's so many problems in the world. So let me study international relations and see if I could make some small contribution. I went to graduate school in Massachusetts at the Fletcher School at Tufts University. And a lot of my friends there were taking the exam to get into the Foreign Service, something I had never thought of. So I took it. Why not? And a few years later, I was working in some boring job in Washington. The study department called me and offered me a job, so I took it.

I had never really focused on Asia before, but in my master's thesis, I had ended up writing about U.S. human rights policy toward the Philippines during the Marcos era. So there was a job opening in the Philippines, and I volunteered for it and was sent to the Philippines and was there when people power happened. and population basically overthrew, not really overthrew, but they forced Marcos to withdraw after he tried. 85, 86, right? 86, yeah.

Yeah. And then once I was in Southeast Asia, I loved it, and I kept getting opportunities to work more in Southeast Asia. So I went to Vietnam when we were just reestablishing relations with Vietnam back in the early 90s and then went to Hong Kong. I was in Hong Kong during its reversion from British to Chinese rule. and ended up coming back after some time in Turkey, came back and worked some more from Washington on Southeast Asia,

and then was fortunate enough to be nominated to go to Indonesia where we met. And by then I was completely captured by Southeast Asia and ended up with almost four and a half years in Myanmar. Wow. You've been working on a book, and it's going to be coming out very soon. Right. Tell us about your book. It's going to be called Imperfect Partners, the United States and Southeast Asia.

And I look at U.S. relations with a number of countries in Southeast Asia, frankly based largely on where I spent a lot of time. So I have a couple chapters on the Philippines and Thailand, our longtime allies. And I trace the ups and downs of the relationships, chapters on our what I call the former foes, Vietnam and Cambodia. and then countries that had gone through transitions, Indonesia, and Myanmar, which at the time, at least, was going through a transition. And I write about it, ASEAN, and at the end, I come up with some suggestions on what the United States should do to strengthen its ties with Southeast Asia. But the focus is really on, you know, this is a really important region of the world, as you know, and it's important to the United States. and for too long, it's been seen as a little bit of a side show by people in Washington who tend to focus on China or the Middle East or whatever.

And that with some more investment of time and effort, I think the United States can do more to have stronger relations with the region and the countries. Walk us through some of the countries that you've been exposed to and you've been writing about in a book. Yeah. I mean, I think later on I'm going to talk. try to get you to make comparisons between one and another, you know, in a context of how difficulties have arisen and how they should be resolved or how they have been resolved between one country

and another, all that. Sure. We can start with any country. Okay. Well, I'll start maybe in chronological order and also the order of the book with the Philippines where I started my career, you know, is an American colony. And we didn't have a lot of colonies, thankfully. but it was one.

So that's always influenced the relationship. And after World War II, when the Philippines got independence, we had bases there. So it was an important ally during the Cold War, during the Vietnam War. When I got there in the mid-'80s, things weren't going well. There was a communist insurgency. There was insurgency in the south where the ethnic minority Muslim population felt that they didn't have the rights that they wanted and the autonomy. they wanted the economy was doing badly a lot of corruption etc so and we had supported marcos for many years but by that time we we saw that this guy's probably there needs to be a change but

the Filipino people have to make it and they did through people power anyway the what's interesting since that time it's been really up and down in the Philippines both in terms of how it's performed economically and politically but also the relationship really depending a lot on the leadership at the presidential level in the Philippines. So you had particular ups during the No, No, Aquino administration, which corresponded to the Obama administration. And then during the Duterte years, the relationship struggled because Duterte had a particular animus toward the United States for personal reasons. But the important point is the people of the two countries have that there's a really close relationship there's a lot of

friendship there's a deep reservoir of friendship and so now we're at the stage of we're still allies you know we're not going to have bases there anymore so how can we work together in a more modern way um Thailand i cover you know where we had a soon you you went there during the marcos era yeah the older one now we've got a younger version of marcos what What's your view of the Philippines by way of the younger marvelous and going forward? Well, a couple things. I mean, one of the Philippines does have some history of electing people whose father or mother was a prominent figure or even a president. Certainly, you know, Gloria Macabagal-Oroyo's father had been president.

Noonio Aquino's mother, Corey Aquino had been president. So it's not unusual in that sense. I think, speaking very frankly, I think Bongbong, Marcos' presidential campaign relied heavily on creating a much more attractive picture of what the Philippines was like during his father's reign than was the reality.

But nonetheless, he was elected. He's the legitimate president. And I think it's good that President Biden called him early, congratulated and met him. And I think it's important not to make judgments about new leaders, particularly if it's the son or daughter of somebody, based on what their parent might have done and to judge him in this case by what he does. And he's nominated some really good people, as you know, to the cabinet. I think the bilateral relationship's off to a good start. So let's see.

Okay. Then the next country? Thailand. I never served in Thailand, but I spent a lot of time there. We had a really close relationship in the 50s and 60s, an ally. And particularly during the Vietnam War, we were flying a lot of missions out of Thailand, out of Thai bases, but with a heavy U.S. presence. And so that was kind of the high point of the alliance after the Vietnam War.

The Thai were, I think, a little shocked by what happened. And so the relationship cooled somewhat. we then worked together with a tie again very closely in the 1980s on Cambodia where you know in response to you know the Khmer Rouge takeover and then the Vietnamese invasion remember in those days Vietnam was seen as a Soviet proxy or Soviet client state and so horrified as people were by the Khmer Rouge they were just as horrified by the prospect of this Soviet-backed client state invading and taking over another southeast Asian country. So Thailand really led the effort within ASEAN to put pressure on Vietnam to

withdraw. And we supported that, as did China. Interestingly, it was Thailand, China, the United States, and the rest of ASEAN. And then it wasn't working ideally. And at some point, Indonesia took the initiative within ASEAN to open up ties, but dialogue with Vietnam, which I think was really effective. So the combination of all these efforts led to Vietnamese to withdraw the Cambodian Peace Accords, etc. Anyway, that was another pretty high point in the relationship of the Thailand. I think since that period, we in the Thai, we've struggled to kind of define what's the relationship.

It's still an alliance, but the Thailand has moved back toward its more traditional neutral role. It's traditionally not been closely alive with the major power. And then there's been disagreements over Thai domestic politics where we responded pretty critically to two tycoos in 2006 and 2014. So again, it's been a relationship that's been drifting somewhat over the last 30 or 40 years. But to me, the important thing, there's still a lot we can do with a tie. It's an important, really, really interesting country.

It's struggling with politics right now, but so are we. Who's not? Yeah, who's not. So I think there's a lot still there. matter of reimagining what we mean by this alliance and trying to make the best of it. Myanmar. Myanmar. It's going to be longer. I know, I know you've gotten summons and called for, you know, conversations, discussions,

and discourses of Myanmar lately. Someone, a Myanmar individual put out on Twitter, I think in response to something I put on Twitter recently, he said, why are we so unlucky with our history? And, and, you know, you don't want to blame some anonymous history, but, but history hasn't been kind to Myanmar for the last 50 years. And I guess I would highlight a couple things. One, you know, you had this Burma, Bahmar kingdom with a, you know, the Bamar, who are Buddhist, or maybe 75, to 80% of the population of the country. And they've kind of dominated over the years.

And then you have all these other ethnic communities in the country who, since independence, for the most part, have not really felt like they were fully part of the country, treated fully as equal citizens. As I said to you before, we started talking on the mic, it would be as if everything in Indonesia was about Java, it was the language was Javanese and everything. So you've had conflict as ethnic minority communities

who tend to inhabit the borderlands have fought for ostensibly independence, but really more autonomy. And the Burmese military took over in 1962, largely to preserve the unity of the country, or at least that was the stated reason. But in doing that, they also really made sure that the ethnic bomb are dominated. And they've dominated ever since. You can't, you can't rise above captain or major in the military if you're not mama. It's not a written rule, I don't think,

but it's a rule. And they've kind of suppressed the teaching of other languages and history and so on. So that's been one problem. At the same time, for 40 years, you've had a large part of the population that's advocated for democracy. We're tired of being ruled by the general. We're tired of being ruled by the generals because the generals, in addition to being repressive and Bahmar-centric, also totally mismanaged the economy, the health care system, the education. They took a country that was doing relatively pretty well in the early 60s and turned it into one of the poorest countries in the world. And so there was constant pressure from the ethnic minority communities for a process that gave them more autonomy and by Bahmar and others for democracy. So,

fast forward to 2011 when former president tain sane who had taken off his military uniform i think surprised everybody by beginning to enact reforms and open up the country and um a lot of people have sort of said well he didn't do this he didn't do that but yeah if you were like me and you had been visited the country in 2005 six seven eight and then you went back in 2013 14 the change was dramatic. Partly physical, but more mentally and in terms of space, you had political parties, independent media without censorship, Aung San Suu Kyi and all the other political prisoners had been released and were actually able to form political parties and compete. The economy was reformed. In 2009, you could barely get internet there. By 2014-15, everybody had a smartphone.

So the change was significant. And then you had elections in 2015 that resulted in a landslide victory for Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy Party. The military, we were worried, but the military went along with it. And I showed up in Myanmar a week before Aung San Suu Kyi's government was inaugurated. And there was euphoria in the air. People were so finally, there had already been progress, but now finally we've chosen our leaders. And so it was a period of euphoria. It ended up disappointing. First, the military

still had a lot of power under the 2008 Constitution. They were unaccountable to the civilian government in every way. They still had 25% of the seats in parliament, a little bit like what the Indonesian military had for a while, but was even more power and veto power, really, over any constitutional amendments. And there was tension from the beginning between Aung San Suu Kyi and the military leader. Nonetheless, there were some memorand reforms. People could travel.

People had access to information. The economy was growing. Agriculture sector was doing much better. A peace process was stumbling along. At least there was hope for that. Then you had in 2017, the Rohingya crisis, which had been building for years. It didn't come out of the blue.

But the Rohingya is a population of, you know, a little bit over a million people, a Muslim community whose forefathers had come from Bangladesh had faced long discrimination in Myanmar. They were in Rakhine State on the far west near the Bangladesh border. Nearly all of the Rohingya lived. And they were living in an almost a place. apartheid-like setting where they just didn't have the rights of others. And there was a lot of

propaganda, particularly from the military, but from others saying they don't belong here. They're illegal aliens. They're a threat to us. So there was a lot of antipathy toward the Rohingya. And then in 2016, but particularly in 2017, a small group of Rohingya launched attacks against police forces, police stations. The military responded. I mean, the whole world condemned those attacks. It was not a good move. But then the military reacted with a really disproportionate force.

Went inside burning Rohingya village, just killed. We still don't know how many thousands of people. Lots of credible reports of gang rapes and just horrible stuff. That within months, 7 to 800,000 to 800,000 Rohingya had fled into Bangladesh. You know, it's just a mass exodus. It was horrible. But what was almost as bad as that was the way the country reacted, which was denial. So the whole world is largely saying this is an outrage.

And Myanmar military, but also civilian authorities and much of the population were saying, no, these allegations against the military, that's not true. It's a conspiracy theory to hurt Myanmar. and to a certain extent with a lot of ugly prejudice toward the Rohingya also showing itself. And so those of us who were there as diplomats were kind of in the middle trying to convince the government to take some steps to the civilian government as well as the military, military to end the violence and the civilian government to take steps to try to give the Rohingya the rights that they deserved and to treat, mostly just to treat.

treat them with dignity that any human being deserves. Aung San Suu Kyi had invited in former Secretary General of the UN Kofi Annan with a commission. They'd come up with a list of recommendations that was quite good, but it never really got implemented. What you stopped her from? I think a lot of people were surprised. Yeah, yeah. It's really hard to know for sure. So I can only speculate.

One, it was deeply embedded in the minds of a lot of Myanmar people, including people who were, you know, human rights defenders, pretty progressive in general, that the Rohingya were a threat. This is a country, remember, that's bordered by India and China. So the fear of being overwhelmed by, you know, a massive influx of population is pretty deeply ingrained, even if it might seem unlikely to us. For a lot of Myanmar people, it's real. So some people believe that the Rohingya were, you know, the first wave of a flood from Bangladesh that might overwhelm the country. That's part of it. A lot of just plain prejudice, kind of like what we've suffered from in our country toward African Americans and others. I think politically there was no constituency in the country to stand up for the Rohingya.

So for any politician, it would have taken courage to stand up and do the right thing. There was concerns about going against the military, the still powerful military. And I think over time there was also this, as I mentioned, kind of a widespread belief of conspiracy theories that the organization of Islamic countries was leading this massive effort with the U.S., the UK, and others to blame Myanmar for something that wasn't its fault or that wasn't true. So I think all of those- Did that predate social media? No, social media was a big part of it. Okay. Social media was definitely a big part.

Facebook was widely used in. So it was just, it was very hard to find people to stand up. Now, my personal view is, Aung San Suu Kyi, with her immense popularity, could have stood up and said something like, look, we may disagree about whether these people are citizens of Myanmar or whatever. But if we want to be the kind of country that we say we want to be, we need to treat all human beings with dignity and respect.

I think she could have done that. But the right, she was the beacon of, you know, certain basic democratic rights. Right. But she obviously didn't see it that way. I don't, I didn't detect from her any hatefulness toward the Rohingya, but she didn't stand up for them. And nor did really anybody else. And so it became an us versus them.

And, you know, it's something interesting beyond Myanmar, a case. of two narratives that were 180 degrees apart, the international narrative and the domestic narrative, completely distinct from one another, about what was happening about the facts on the ground. And so that obviously tarnished her reputation, less than support for her and her government and for the country as a whole.

And within Myanmar led to a lot of resentment toward much of the international community. And now since, you know, I'll fast... It didn't help her also in terms of getting more support from the military. Not really, no. I think it didn't hurt her support domestically. She was still, you know, deeply admired. And if you fast forward to the November 2020 national elections, by this time I had left me in R.

But the military thought that her party wouldn't do as well, not because of the Rohingya, but because they thought ethnic minority communities who were disappointed that there hadn't been more progress toward peace might vote against her. But they didn't. She and her party won an even larger land site in 2020. The military, I think, fearing that this another five years of their government could chip away at the military's power and prerogatives, basically, threatened, demanded, you know, called, you know, called it fake voting, fake elections, election fraud.

I mean, they were repeating what Donald Trump was saying in our country, which is sad. But the NLD-Aa-L-Ason-Suchi didn't give on that. So the military overthrew it, overthrew the elected government in February 2021, excuse me. I think they thought they could do what Thailand had in 2014. There would be a few protests. They promised to have elections and everything would be fine. But instead, the whole country, or nearly the whole country, rose up in one massive series of protests that went on for weeks.

And at some point, the military just started killing people. They just started shooting people in the streets. After a while, people said, okay, we better do something. So they started taking up arms. So you've had a proliferation of armed groups, mostly at local levels, locally organized, taking up arms against the military. You've had a big civil disobedience campaign where health care workers, teachers, and others who work for the government have basically gone on strike. And you have the formation of a national unity government, which is really led by people associated with the elected government. And you have now this horrible humanitarian situation.

The military is basically at war with its own people, with the same kind of brutality, the same level of brutality that you see the Russians engaging in in Ukraine. Just horrific stuff. Torture. I don't know how many people have died in under detention. Children and others being tortured and killed. It's just barbaric.

And the military is being pressured like never before. It's being stretched really thin. They still hold on to the basic levers of power, but quite weakened. And the uprising has a lot of momentum, but they lack funding. You know, they lack recognition internationally. There's a lot of frustration among the population. Why isn't the world helping us more? You're helping Ukraine.

Why aren't you helping us? They seem to be disregarding the cost with respect to isolating themselves from the rest of the world, right? Because probably they're thinking they've done it before. They're kind of used to it. Is that a safe assumption? Yeah. I think the military mindset, not that I ever fully understood, it, but talking to people who really understand the military as well as anyone does, over the years,

they've created an echo chamber within the military. They're the only institution that holds the country together. They're the key to the country's unity and success, and anyone who opposes them is the enemy and deserves whatever they get. And it's reinforced with a lot of brutality in terms of discipline, even among the, with in the soldiers. So they, to a certain extent, don't care a whole lot about what the rest of the world thinks. They just don't. And by, I'm sure they would prefer to be invited all around the world, but it's not a huge thing for them. They want to stay in power. Is that attributable to the

possibility or fact that perhaps some external forces are actually behind the scene helping them? partly. I mean, not even behind the scenes. Russia, since the day of the coup, has been strongly supporting them, visiting, offering weapons, I mean, selling them weapons. And Minong Lai, the general who led the coup and the commander of the army, has gone to Moscow, I think three times or more since the coup. China is also supporting them pretty openly. India is, I wouldn't say they're supporting them as strongly, but certainly supporting them

to a certain extent, Thailand. So they are getting support in ways they're getting more practical, tangible support than the resistance. Wow. You know, I was feeling quite optimistic a few years ago when I thought that they were probably going to take examples from what Indonesia went through in the late 90s, right? Yeah. And we were very, you know, adamant on...

undertaking this military reform before any type of political reform would take place. And we were under the impression that our friends in Myanmar would sort of like look into that and hopefully copycat it. But it's very different the way things have unraveled. Yeah, it is very different. And I think a lot of us were hoping that the reforms would continue. When I first got there, the military had been. basically tolerated a lot of reforms.

They hadn't led them. Former military guys had, but the military wasn't. So, but I guess thinking with a Western mindset, we were thinking, okay, it's in the military's interest to be able to have more engagement with the world. And the more that they go along with reforms and change their behavior on the battlefield in terms of these conflicts, the more opportunities there would be.

But in my discussions with them, they've seemed to think. think that the world should be willing to work with them without really any change. So it's, I can't say there's no reformers in the military. I don't know. But you know, there's no obvious, you know, Susilo Bang Bang Yudiyono or Agus Wajoyo or someone like that who's really an obvious reformer. I think the reformers now have their heads down to the extent they exist at all. They're staying very low profile. Or Agus Ruehara, Kusuma.

Those were the three reforms. But is there hope for some sort of a reform? I think there's a hope. Within the military. It's hard to say. It's a really opaque institution. I think reform from within the military. It's possible, but I don't think we could expect it.

Okay. So I don't rule it out, but I don't predict it either. I think, for me, the best hope is that the various elements of the resistance are able to put so much pressure on the military that some senior officers say, we need to find a way out. Not surrender necessarily, but, okay, let's sit down and talk and be willing to make some concessions, and then that could potentially set the stage for some reforms. But to a certain extent, I think they're going to have to be forced, certainly going to have to remove the leadership. of the military.

One more point I want to make about Myanmar, because I think it's really important, is that it's easy to say that the people are fighting for democracy, and they are to an extent. But they're also fighting to get back the opportunity that they had briefly and the hope that they saw that life can be better for us. And they had a 10-year window of liberty and opportunity, and it was taken away.

Correct. Stability was taken away. Yeah, and I think hope for the younger generation, particularly, which imagine you have no hope, and then suddenly you get access to information, you can travel, you can study abroad, you can open a business, the economy's growing, and like, okay, there's still big problems, but we at least see a way forward. We have reason to be hopeful. And the military just took that away.

And the economy is in very serious. serious situation as well. And so I think it's fighting for all these things. Basically, we have nothing to lose because the military's taken away all of our hope. And so this isn't some kind of, if you can call it, ordinary coup. It's not a civil war between two rival political factions. Basically, it's an incredibly brutal, corrupt military seizing power and the whole country is saying, we don't accept this. why won't the rest of the world help us? You've said a couple of things in the past.

One would have been, it's not just about democracy and human rights, but it's also about stability, which you alluded to. And the other stuff that you would have alluded to earlier would have been with regards to, there's no point having a negotiation with a military. So what are you suggesting? as optionalities. Yeah.

I mean, to be clear, there's not, it's not like I see, well, if we just did this, everything would be fine. I don't think there's any easy answers. But any number of people, UN Special Envoy, Ozzy on Special Envoy, have gone in and tried to open up a dialogue with the military, and they've gotten, you know, absolutely nowhere. The military is not interested in making any concessions. So, you know, going to talk.

to them just gives them it benefits them without them having to make any concessions and I would I don't want to speak for the Myanmar people but my sense from the resistance forces is they're not interested in dialogue right now because there's no compromise deal to be had it doesn't seem at this point what would it look like people don't want to go back to the pre-coo stage whether there's a civilian elected government but the military is still powerful and unaccountable People don't want that. So the only way out, I mean, the military is saying the way out is we're going to have elections. And I worry that some countries who can't see another way out of this will seize on this and say, well, it's better than nothing.

It actually won't be better than nothing because it won't address any of the fundamental problems. These will be, if they're held, there'll be military-run elections with pretty much all the politicians in jail. And I would imagine most people will refuse to vote or will only vote at the, you know, at gunpoint. And it could have lots of violence in the elections. So the elections won't do any good at all. In fact, they might make things worse. So it's really important that ASEON, the United States and others say, hey, no, elections aren't a way out. What is the way out?

I think the only hope I see is, again, for the military to feel so much pressure from internal and international forces that some of the generals and colonels say, okay, if our countries, if we don't want our country to be destroyed and our institution to be destroyed, we need to find a way out. And at that point, I think there's room potentially for some kind of dialogue discussion. Would it Ozzyon were to take a different view? Would that still be an option to pursue body A different view in what sense? A different view from what you're suggesting, that the military ought to be pressured. Yeah.

Well, I mean, the, I mean, not that I'm representing what ASEAN. No, I understand. The ASEAN 5-point consensus, which they're keeping a lot, is dead. It should be buried. And that's no offense to ASEAN. It was an effort they tried in good faith, but the generals obviously aren't interested in it. I think, again, I don't have any monopoly on wisdom here. If there's other ideas, great.

Let's hear them. But hoping that somehow the generals can be convinced to be reasonable and moderate is, frankly, is forgive the term. It's a fool's errand. It's not going to happen. So any other approach needs to be done on the basis that these generals are not the type. to say, okay, we'll be nice and we'll cut a deal. We'll stop killing our people. It's not going to happen.

What about time? Do you think he'll heal? I mean, I'm, I just don't think ASEAN will be able to take the kind of view that you're suggesting here. There's a good chance you're right. You're a good chance for right. Not that I don't appreciate what you're saying. I think you have a great understanding of what's happening in Myanmar, and you're suggesting that the option of putting pressure on the military needs to be considered.

But ASEAN is just not that type of an organization. Well, I mean, I might suggest far be it from me to tell ASEAN what to do. There's different ways you can do it. Azoan's not going to impose sanctions. Right. But as Malaysian foreign minister Saifudin and others, I believe someone in the Indonesian foreign Foreign Ministry was quoted the other day. There's other things that can be done.

ASEON or key ASEAN members can begin to engage more with a national unity government, which is certainly much more representative of the population than that's a form of... That's someone more realistic. And that's a form of both pressure on the military but also a morale boost

for the public. And so I think that sort of thing. And just talking to them and say, what's the way out? And I think the important thing to understand, too, here is that finding some way to get the military mostly out of politics is essential, and that's obviously what the Myanmar people are focused on. But even if that happens, there's still a huge amount to do, right? Because you still, the population, the body politic, whatever you want to call it, still has to figure out what kind of system do they want to have going forward that can end the conflict with the ethnic groups.

People talk about federalism, but, okay, what kind of federalism? What's it going to look like on the ground? Probably you would need some kind of transition period. Right. A couple years. Who knows? So there's a lot that Aosian could do talking about those things as well in a positive way. So I would hope that at least some ASEAN members, if not all of ASEAN, will more openly and regularly engage with the National Unity government.

with ethnic minority communities and many of the other players. I think that would be very helpful. I'm going to ask you what somebody else had already asked you. What do you think will happen next year at the Ozzy meet? In 2023? Yeah. Well, I mean, we don't know what other events and crises are going to happen. But I would think to a certain extent, and, you know, I've spent a lot.

I was ambassador for ASEAN affairs. I love working with ASEAN. But, you know, ASEON is not a bold institution. And it's not, it's designed not to be bold. So I think ASEON 2023 will look somewhat like ASEAN 2022 and ASEAN 2021 and ASEAN 2020. And I don't say that to be a harsh critic, but I think that's just realistic. Obviously, with Indonesia as the chair, there'll be some different dynamic. I would expect there'll be a lot of discussion about energy and energy security because the whole world's facing it.

Maybe food security to the extent that we see a growing food security crisis globally. Issues such as how to deal with the tension around Taiwan, inevitably, you know, South China Sea and the U.S. China relations will come in. and how do you continue the economic recovery from COVID while COVID is still with us. So a lot of the same issues that I think that the whole world will tackle. And the Myanmar crisis will still be there, sadly. So I think there's a lot of challenges for ASEAN as an institution. And I guess one other is how is ASEAN going to deal with the changing regional architecture? And what I mean by that is the U.S. and most other countries are still paying homage to ASEAN centrality, and I think believe in ASEAN centrality.

But you've got the quad. You've got OECUS. You've got other institutions, which I don't think are a threat to ASEAN per se. But trying to figure, how do you, how does ASEAN work in a world where these other institutions have also developed? There are some in Southeast Asia who resent the idea that they were not. involved, conversationally at least, you know, at the formation of either office or quite. Do you have any view on this to placate or to pacify some of these, you know, people that have expressed resentments? Sure.

I think the reality is that Aalzion, for all the good that it has done, and I do believe it's done a lot of good, has proven itself not very capable of addressing regional problems. And so it's not surprising that people are going to look at other, you know, what other options there are to try to, can any other options? And who knows if these other options will be more successful? Maybe they will. Maybe they won't. So I think some of this is ASEON's extreme caution on regional issues basically means that, you know, the hard part of me, I guess, would say, if I can use that term, was say, hey, Aeson, this is what happens when you don't. take leadership role and when, you know, a number of your members are unwilling to condemn

Russia for its outright aggression against Ukraine. The other, the softer and probably the 80% part of me would say maybe all that's true, but it would have been really good to consult a lot and communicate a lot. Hey, here's what we're doing. Because again, I don't think the quad was created against ASEAN or to supersede ASEAN in any way. So I think I've always said, you know, consulting with the ASEAN members, hey, here's what we're thinking, here's what we want to do, welcome your ideas, are always open, absolutely. And I think there's been more of that lately, and I think it should continue, including,

hey, are there ways that we can complement, or at least make sure that we're exchanging information? We're not asking you to sign up to the quad or applaud it necessarily, but let's consult. Let's see where there's some, you know, on things like vaccines or clean energy, can we work together? And it doesn't have to be against China. Ideally, it's not against China. I want to get to those topics, but I think there's quite a number of Southeast Asians

who probably don't think of the regional issues as real issues. And that's probably why they're not taking ownership with whatever outsiders seem to be wanting to take ownership with. And this is probably historically rooted in the facts, not just the imagination, that, you know, we've had a pretty peaceful region, pretty stable region. Yeah. pretty little rivalries with anybody outside, you know, barring the colonization, right? And that's probably the thinking of quite a number of Southeast Asians. Or the other would be to just not want to deal with it.

Yeah. I agree. And to be fair, you know, since the establishment of ASEAN, I mean, right, ASEAN was established for a number of reasons, but one of them was to manage the distrust, mistrust among the member states so that the big powers didn't come in and interfere and mess with things. And I think ASEAN's been pretty successful of that. You know, you can't say, well, there have been no wars because of ASEAN, but since ASEON's existence, there haven't been wars between, States. I mean, you had Vietnam, Cambodia, but they weren't ASEAN members at the time. So I think ASEAN has done a lot of good in that respect. But I think when you talk about Aussian centrality, to me that means partly give ASEAN the first crack at dealing with issues

that arise in the region, like Myanmar. And I think the world has done that. In fact, the United States, to Myanmar, people have been criticized in the U.S. Stop hiding behind in ASEAN. Right. So, and another one in the South China Sea. Yeah. Which is tricky because that's China. Yeah.

And it only affects roughly half the members of ASEAN. So if you're not one of the claimant states, like, this isn't my battle. And so I think that's a real challenge. But I think, again, I think Aaljean has played an important role. but it struggled, again, with an issue like Myanmar. And again, I'm not saying there's an easy answer. But you've been, I'm with you. I mean, you've been making the point that I think it's tragic that, you know,

the world has been a little too preoccupied with what's happening in Ukraine, as sad as it is out there. But I think there ought to be more bandwidth for, you know, issues that are happening in Myanmar. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, things like, I usually don't bash the UN. Right.

Because people say, why isn't the UN doing anything? Well, it's the Security Council that can do a lot. And unless if any of the veto, the states with veto powers say no, it can't do anything. But I am surprised that the UN Secretary General has not been out there more. He was just in Vietnam. Out there more leading to charge. If not for a diplomatic solution, what about going to Thailand and pushing for a humanitarian corridor? because there's huge humanitarian needs.

There's more that the world can do to try to help all the people who've been displaced, to help on the education front so that Myanmar students who have been pushed off into the border regions can still get an education. So even if you don't want to get involved in the hard part of it,

supplying weapons and all those sorts of things, which is understandable, there's a lot more that could be done on the humanitarian side and making much more an effort to help the people of Myanmar. Let's talk about your latest paper where you suggested, you know, a higher degree of engagement by the US with respect to Southeast Asia.

Talk about that. Yeah. My view is, first I'll talk about it in sort of geostrategic terms. Because there's this tendency among many of us to say, well, U.S. and China fighting over Southeast Asia. And I think that's, there's a lot more nuance to it than that. I think the U.S. and China would both like to have a lot of influence in Southeast Asia. I think that's, that's normal and understandable. But what, or I disagree with some is the notion that we should be trying to convince Southeast Asia that's, that's,

that China is bad and that therefore they should side more with us. And I know consecutive administrations have said we're not asking you to choose. And I think that's true. But I think in researching my book and based on my own experience, I think there's a lot more that the United States can do and that Southeast Asians can do to build closer partnerships with each other, not against China. But with a positive agenda talking about health, climate change, economic development, a range of any of other issues, we're doing all those things, but I think we could do more. And it means more consistent U.S. engagement so that Southeast Asian leaders aren't wondering, well, Americans presidential elections are coming up. I wonder if the next president's going to pay any attention. Is he going to show up? That's a problem for us. That's a U.S. problem. On the economic side, which by the laser paper focused on,

we're losing influence economically. Pulling out of TPP was a huge strategic mistake. And we'll see if IPEF, the Pacific Economic Framework, we'll see if that leads to something, but it's important that it does, or if not, that there's another vehicle or vehicles found for the U.S. to do more on the economic side. And again, it's not to try to match China dollar for Yuan or whatever,

it's just to be there. And I guess my premise is if Southeast Asians see us as a reliable partner and a good partner economically based on a positive agenda, then we can have a good relationship with Southeast Asia. Recognizing the Southeast Asians

are also going to choose to have a good relationship with China, as they should. I would if I were running a Southeast Asian government. I would want to have a good relationship with China too and with Japan and Australia and India and all of them. So it's not about choosing in any sense. So I think there's a lot more that can be done. I think the current administration's making some real efforts on that front.

And to be fair, I think there's also more effort needed on the part of Southeast Asia. Honestly, the two countries that consistently really push the relationship and they really work Washington are Singapore and Vietnam. Yeah. Others, it's more up and down to be perfectly blunt. So in my book, I talk about this. I try to be objective. I critique the United States, but I also note where there could be more of an effort on the part of the Southeast Asian.

Not necessarily to always agree with this, but to say, hey, let's look for opportunities. We have an idea. So in a way, all of this is a long way of saying, I think there's prospects for much improved, relations between the United States and ASEON and its members, not with the Myanmar honta per se right now, but longer term. But it shouldn't be based on China. It should be based on a positive agenda. And my view is if the U.S. has good relations with all of the members of Southeast Asia,

that gives all of them more freedom of maneuver. If we're not there, they have to accommodate China more. If we're there and engaged, they can choose when they want to do deals with China. We're not trying to stop that. But at least they have that freedom of choice. And I think that's where we should be focused. I'm with you in a camp where I don't think Southeast Asia can be pushed to a corner where they have to choose either a Huawei or an iPhone. I think the onus is more upon China and or the United States.

to do whatever they have to do with Southeast Asia. Yeah. And I think it's high time. And I agree with you in that I think Vietnam and Singapore have done tremendously, you know, in terms of doing whatever they needed to do to get the attention of both the United States and China. And it's manifested in the way money flows. You know, money has flown. Yeah.

From the United States and China into each one of these two countries, Vietnam and Singapore. They've been working diligently, consistently, very hard on just this matter. Yeah. Not to mention the other matters. And this is something that I think other Southeast Asian countries ought to try to emulate. And, you know, I've been talking about how Singapore has been able to get FDI massively more than any other country. on a per capita per year basis, on a total basis, you name it. Yeah. Yeah, and I think that's for a couple of reasons. One, they've been consistently opened.

Yeah. It's an easy place to do business with clear rules and enforceable rules. That's hard to develop, but that's certain. I call that trustworthy. Yeah, yeah. People can go do business there without worrying too much. I mean, you have all the normal business commercial risks that you have anywhere, but you don't have a lot of additional risks.

So I agree with you. One point on the Huawei iPhone thing, I think it's appropriate for the U.S. to go to Southeast Asia quietly, not Trump like this, and say, look, we've got real concerns about Huawei and under the Chinese Constitution their requirements, if asked by the Ministry of State Security in China to basically share information. that sort of thing. Happy to share what we know about this. But it's still your call.

Yeah. Right? You decide what works for you. So it's that kind of thing where you do get into a little bit of U.S. versus China. But I think there's a lot of nuance that can be in the way it can be handled. And it's always got to be handled in a way that doesn't try to pressure. Sure. Well, well informed and democratize it.

Yeah. Let them choose. Yeah, exactly. They don't need to be pushed into a corner. Exactly. And on your broader point about investment, yeah, I mean, take Indonesia where, you know, there's a lot of U.S. interest. I mean, it's a huge market, right?

It's enormous market, and it's had good growth. And so a lot of potential, lots of potential opportunities and clean energy, consumer goods, supply chain dynamics. And I think, I mean, you would know this much better than I would, but I think Indonesia, because of its history, has been somewhat more wary of foreign investment, particularly in the natural resources sector. And I understand why.

I mean, that's colonized by a Dutch company, not even by a Dutch company. We can go into the present value discussion of how much was taken, but I'm not going to get there. No, so I understand why. But I think this is where, and this is true in Myanmar too, where there's a certain amount of wariness about foreign investment because their experience with foreign investment

has often been quite negative. And this is where you get in the conversation about quality foreign investment. And to me, that means investment that, that first and foremost, benefits local communities. Right. Through employment, transfer of technology, protecting the environment, protecting communities, hiring local people,

promoting them up the chain, all these sorts of things so that it may be an American or a Japanese or a Chinese company, but people locally feel like, hey, this is ours. And so I think, I hope going forward there's more discussion about how do you have that kind of quality investment. I have, I'm with you, but I have a. Also another theory about how money behaves. Okay. It's not a function of ideology, geography, natural resources, education, infrastructure.

I mean, those are factors, but those are not the biggest factors. The biggest one, I think, is really the enforceability of rules and regulations. Sure. I mean, you know, we've seen these. you know, ease of doing business publications year over year. But if you take a look at it closely, it's not correlated with how you rank up in terms of your ability to attract FDI.

There would have been guys that would have been at the lower parts of the rankings, but we're able to get more FDI. And I do believe that the enforceability of rules and regulations is the single most dominant factor. And that's the reason why Singapore has been able to get FDI of $19,000 on a per capita per year basis. That's incredible. The Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Malaysia are in $100 to $400 range each. Staggering difference.

Yeah. 100 to 400 19,000 I mean this is like LeBron James We're like Division 3 Right And you put money in Singapore You know

You can take it out anytime Yeah When you go to a court You know If you have a favorable legal position Whether or not you're the poorest Or the richest

You will win Yeah You don't have that sort of a view In many other countries And I think that's why democratically money flows to where gravity is. And gravities, I think, predominantly defined by the enforceability of rules and regulations. No, I think that's a really fair. Not that I don't buy your nationalistic nationalism argument or whatever.

I think that plays into it. But to the extent that you know, you can't enforce. rules. Yeah. You're right. And some of what we're talking about, I agree with you. Some of what we're talking about might be sort of the difference between demand and supply for an investment. So I think the supply for Indonesia is probably pretty good. The demand is where the problem may be sometimes. But you're right that the supply would increase the more that there's enforceability of rules. Right. And I remember in... Turkey years ago, a senior official telling me that, you know what our problem is? We've gone from

dictatorship to democracy, which is a good thing. But it's not an efficient democracy where the rules are enforced. So you could have a, not every authoritarian system, authoritarian system also can have non-enforceability of rules. But if you don't have a strong judicial system and a strong regulatory system that investors can trust, then you need somebody or some mechanism within the government that fixes things the right, you know, in some kind of predictable and reasonable way. I'm not advocating for that, but right, if you don't have that, then you've got to have some other mechanism to make investors domestic or foreign feel comfortable. I want to push on clean energy.

I think there are many countries around the world. There are some countries in Southeast Asia that need help in clean energy. Yeah. And one of which is Indonesia, a country of scale. And if you take a look at the electrification on a per capita per year basis, it's still one-tenth of that in Singapore, 1,000 kilowatt hour, Singapore at 10,000. And if you want to be a modern nation, you need to ramp. up on power generation capabilities by orders of magnitude.

And things that are scalable in energy are stuff like nuclear and or geothermal. Solar, I think, will happen, but there's interferences in the sky. We call them clouds in Indonesia. But they'll clear up as soon as we start embracing this new path to renewable. what's your take on this? Yeah, I agree. I'm glad you raised it, Gita, because actually what I'm trying to focus on now,

exactly this issue of how can the United States and others better support or more actively support Southeast Asia's clean energy transition? I mean, while we, of course, need to continue our own. I agree. I think we all see, we're seeing in real time the implications of climate. change here and all around the world this year that just really troubling weather patterns and it's only going to get worse. Right.

So I think there's urgency. There should be urgency to this effort. And I, as well as increasing power supply in places like Indonesia, as you said. So one of the things I'm looking at is what can the United States do to help, including, you know, facilitating promoting investment in clean energy by U.S. or other companies or working with Indonesian companies. I think it's really important. There's various commitments both by Indonesia to achieve clean energy goals and by the United States to help it, but we haven't yet figured out exactly how to do that. So I think there's a lot of work to be done. In terms of the type of energy, you would know better

than I would what fits in Indonesia. It is, I think, the number two in terms of potential. I think it's number two in the world for geothermal. Oh, number one. Is it number one? We own 40% of the world's resources. Yeah. And we've not tapped into any more than 1% to what we have. So it's underrated.

Yeah, it's the silver lining of all those volcanoes that you have. But, yeah, I agree. So geothermal, solar, nuclear. I don't know much about nuclear energy, but given, the way you've described it and the advances in technology, I think a lot of countries have been wary about nuclear energy for some decades now, understandably. I think it's worth taking another look at and sort of saying, hey, does this make any more sense now than maybe it did 20 or 30 years ago and have a serious discussion not prejudiced by, you know, three-mile island or

Chernobyl or even Fukushima? But obviously with those in mind, So, yeah, I think there's a lot of opportunity. I know there was a U.S. government team out in Indonesia not to a few months ago, meaning with Indonesian officials on clean energy cooperation. So there's things in the works, but I'd like to see more of a private sector. Yeah. More private sector participation because in the end... I think it will have to be.

Yeah, in the end, it comes down to actual projects, right? And how can the U.S. and Indonesian governments maybe working together take a project that's not quite commercially viable or is it as folks would say bankable what can you do can you get a little bit of more government money or u.s government money in there to make to turn it into a bankable or commercially viable project or you recalibrate the tariff yeah i mean there's there's a few things i i do believe the private sector can drive the conversation a little bit better yeah uh in any government or in any country oh okay i i i i I want to talk about democracy. It seems to be going through some sort of an episode globally, right? How do we fix this? I wish I knew. You know, I've been preaching about the paradox of the democratization of information

versus that of ideas. We've got so much democratization of information, but we don't have as much, nearly as much. much, democratization of ideas. Yeah. You're right. And we face a real significant threat to our democracy here for the first time in my lifetime right now. And it's based on not an argument over liberal versus conservative policies, which we want those kinds of debates, right?

But rather, lots of disinformation. that has convinced a lot of people, for example, that the last election was won fraudulently. It's nonsense. And the courts have all thrown out any argument to the contrary, but that there's still a lot of people who believe it because they're being fed this information, whether it's by, because our media landscape,

our traditional media landscape has changed. So instead of getting their news from a couple of news networks that all huge pretty close to middle of the ground. Now people go to get their news from outlets, from networks, that are going to tell them what they want to hear and that are making money based on that. And with Fox News being the most egregious example, at least in terms of popularity.

And then on social media, you know, it's great because you or I can write something and put it out on social media and hope somebody reads it. But the trouble is, you know, lots of people are spewing hate and promoting violence and division or just falsehoods on social media,

and people are overwhelmed. And they believe a certain amount of this stuff. And you see it all around the world, right? I mean, the Russians have a very effective disinformation campaign in places like Indonesia about what's happening. in Ukraine by video. So it's partly foreign policy, but it's a lot domestically.

We talked about Bongbong Marcos' election campaign based. I mean, politicians are always going to try to put themselves in the best light. That's not new. But now with social media, you have a greater ability to present people with your own version of the facts. Yeah. And I think for all the good that social media is done, that's a huge. threat and i don't know how you how you deal with this um use use your handphone a lot less

pardon me use your hand phone a lot less use your handphone a lot less yeah you can hope that politicians are more responsible or that people become more media literate and double check the the information they're getting with other sources but i don't know how likely that is You know, some people have argued for government regulation. It's tricky. I mean, we're a country that's so focused on freedom of speech, and I am too, that that's anathema. But might there be space for regulation that requires social media companies, for example, to ensure that their algorithms don't give benefits to the most extreme negative information,

which I understand is what the way a lot of the algorithms work now, you'll get a lot more views if you're writing something that's extreme or hateful than if you're writing a story about how in our country, a Republican and a Democrat worked together to solve some problem. So there may be some regulatory things that can be done, but it's also just going to take a lot of good leadership. Look, I think the real cancer was the invention of the like button. the share button, the retweet button, you know, on the back of desires to create virality.

But it induces behaviors that I think are polarizing conversations at every level of the game. Absolutely. Right. And I'm not. I'm actually quite worried because we are already living in an era and we're going to be living in a long extended era where leadership is going to be filled with talents that are going to appear better on TikTok as opposed to those that could actually intellectualize or get things done. I agree.

And, you know, I try not to be too critical of politicians. People love to complain about politicians, but politicians are basically trying to get reelected, however they are, in one form or the other. Even in China, you're trying to advance in the party, even if it's not a popular election. And in a lot of places, including the United States, getting lots of Twitter followers and going viral regularly is one of the tickets to that or is seen as one of the tickets to that. it's dangerous. And you get the demonization of the other side, which we see on both sides in our country where, you know, if the conservatives dispute a lot of hate, but there's liberals who will say, well, anyone who's a Republican must therefore be a racist and so on, which is also not fair.

So it's a and a lot of this comes from social media and the sort of driving people to more extreme views. I want to ask you about what happened recently in China, the party Congress. How do you think that will impact Southeast Asia? It's hard to say. I'm not a China expert, but I mean one clear thing that came out of the party Congress, whatever you think about, what really happened to who's. in Tao is that, you know, Xi Jinping, who was already the preeminent leader, has, has, you know, seems to have fully ensconced himself in that role. And so I assume that means to a certain

extent a continuation. And his speech, by all accounts, you know, augurs for a continuation of the policies, which domestically is, I think, a more emphasis on security and some really were some things like creating, I hate to say it, an Orwellian nation where facial recognition software is being used to kind of track people everywhere they go. That possible export of that worries me a lot because some regimes might like that. In terms of more traditional foreign policy, I would assume that China will continue to try to flex its muscles to a certain extent. I don't necessarily mean militarily.

you know, say, hey, we're China, we're, you know, we're a great power now and we should be treated accordingly. In Southeast Asia, to me, that means a little bit, this is our sphere of influence. And that depends how it's manifested in practice. It's perfectly appropriate for China to practice active diplomacy and court and engage countries and try to win their favor. That's to be expected and I think totally normal. When it gets into using coercion, you know, we're going to cut off imports of your products if you don't support some of this. I mean, look at how countries reacted, including Indonesia, reacted on the U.S.

Right? I think there's a, I don't want to speak for Indonesia, but I have to assume there was a concern that voting against China on that would bring repercussions, economic or otherwise. And so that's a little bit troubling. But I think mostly you will see a continuation of what we see in China being relatively assertive, continuing to, you know, promote itself through diplomacy, which, again, I can't criticize China for doing that. That's what they should do. I think trying to limit U.S. influence, certainly.

I have enough faith in the countries of Southeast Asia that they don't want to be dominated by anybody, that they're going to want to try to maintain friendships with everybody. And so then it's up to us to make sure that we do our part to make that possible. So that part doesn't overly concern me. He seems to be more and more fixated with Taiwan. Right. And it just seems like it is a bigger geopolitical flashpoint risk as opposed to the South China Sea. Risk. Yeah.

Is that a safe presumption? Yeah. Again, with the caveat that I'm not a China, Taiwan expert, but listening to those who are, I wouldn't say a consensus, but I think the majority opinion among the experts is that, you know, no Chinese leader can afford to see Taiwan. independent right and so any movement toward independence would dramatically raise the risks I think the risks and the cost of an outright invasion are very high and so I I would according to the experts you know many of them are hopeful that China's not looking to go down that path and so for Taiwan it's it's a real balancing act because Taiwan has emerged over the year is a hugely important economy.

And also one that has developed its own culture. I won't say independent culture, but just its own identity to a certain extent. And any prospects, if they had existed at all, for the old one country two systems approach, I think were eliminated when China took such a heavy hand out Hong Kong. So I think it'll be a challenge for Taiwan. and Taiwan's leaders to be careful and balance there

and for friends of Taiwan to help them balance and for China to avoid letting domestic politics to drive action that would be really problematic. So I think it's, again, from listening to the experts because I'm not one, it's certainly worrisome and more attention being paid to it. And I think it's time for a lot of communication, of dialogue and a lot of think twice before you act.

Yeah. I want to ask you a final question. And this will take us back to Southeast Asia. To the extent that the South China Sea is less of a risk than the Taiwan situation, I want to put this in the context of how you think Southeast Asia will vote. going forward in the next 10, 20 to 30 years. And let me try to frame this with, you know, what we've gone through historically in the last 30 years.

If we take a look at Southeast Asia's GDP per capita, on average, it's gone up by about three times in the last 30 years, starting at a higher base than where China started. But during the same period, China's GDP per capita has gone up. by 10 times. They started from a lower base. They ended up at a much higher place. Over 10,000, we're still at 4,900.

I'm actually quite optimistic that we're going to be able to do better than three times in the next 30 years. On the back of how I've seen productivity in some sectors has been boosted up. by the application of low-tech. And we can still go deeper with low-tech application. We can go into a few other sectors that have not been touched, and we can even go deeper with high-tech. I think there's more probability of saturation in China. Right?

I mean, they can still go higher, but I think it will go higher at a decelerated rate. Right. Yeah. Is that the right, I don't know, prognosis? Yeah, it's hard to say if it's right. It's certainly a very plausible one. I mean, I think, I mean, I think China deserves a lot of credit for what it's achieved.

Oh, yeah, you bet. When I was young, I mean, when I was one of those kids whose parents said, make sure you eat all your dinner, they're starving kids in China. Yeah. Because China was so poor at that time. And it's remarkable what China is. has accomplished and and you're going to give it to them yeah trying to do a lot of credit for that and a million people lifted out of poverty yeah that's a good thing we should all be happy about that

um and uh you know people have been predicting that china is going to have a crisis or for for years right so but i think logic and history would suggest that there's a good chance it slows down if it doesn't that's really going to be remarkable um but you are seeing some shifting of investment out of China toward Southeast Asia and other places. As for Southeast Asia's prospects, I am bullish on the region. I mean, demographically, it's still positive. It's getting older, but it's still positive. You've got some growth momentum. I mean, COVID interrupted it, but hopefully it gets back on track. And you've got some really promising sort of startup mentality developing in Indonesia and Vietnam, actually in really almost all the region. And so I think

that's really promising. For me, that one of the challenges is going to be, I mean, if you, you know, don't assume more pandemics and all the like, what's the economic model? You know, for a lot of years, it was, well, look at what Korea did, look at what China did, or go with, start with textiles and build up your industrial base. The Lowy Institute, who recently had a little debate where Tetis Bostri and others each had a little paper that they presented about what's different now and how not to sort of fight the last battle by going with what worked 20 or 30 years ago. So it's really interesting.

I think there's a lot of opportunity for creative thinking, sort of learning from others, but then adjusting for the current situation, meaning more what's happening on supply chain. side to technology that you talked about. How do you foster that startup mentality? I think improving education, particularly university education, is going to be key because more and more jobs are going to require that. And then how do you deal with the downside of technology, which is job displacement, with artificial intelligence and these sorts of things? How are we all going to deal with these things? but overall I'm bullish I think the region's got a lot going for it

and I think it's a good place to invest yeah thank you so much Scott it's fun to talk to you that was Scott Marcia visiting scholar at Stanford University thanks this is endgame

energy energy oh okay I have to talk to you because we're talking all about it Yeah, yeah, yeah. Feel the pressure of being at a big university. I think it's a good way to climatize. Yeah. Thank you, sir.

Yeah, that was fun. So how often do you do these? You know, in a good week, four. In a week? Wow. In a, actually, let me reverse it. In a bad week, four. In a good week, zero.