#79- Professor Selina Ho : ASEAN'S Playbook For An Evolving Global Order

The rest of us who are not allies, it is not to say that we don't need the US. We do, because the US plays a very vital role as a security guarantor in this region. There's a reason why we want the US here. We want all the major powers to be in the region as a way to balance each other out. We are mainly full of small states, smaller states, I wouldn't call Indonesia a smaller state, but it's a relatively weaker state compared to the great powers, right? One people think that we look at China and we think of China as being the most important economic partner that we can have, but we often forget that the largest source of FDI, front-end investment is actually the US. The trade that we have with China, all these, about the role initiative, all these have been actually good for our economies. Now, there is still this stress of China. There is recognition that China is good for us in many ways, but we also fear Chinese dominance. It's always been the case that we welcome all the major powers into the region, because. Professor Salina Ho from the Lee Kuan Yu School of Public Policy serves as the Vice Dean of Research and Development. She primarily focuses her research on Chinese influence in Southeast Asia and how it seeks to project its power in the region. In today's conversation, we talked about the US and China's interests in our region, how small states like Singapore, Laos, and Vietnam manage our relationship with China and the future for ASEAN in a more contestable. I hope you enjoyed today's conversation as much as I did. Southeast Asia has a region of interest to both US and China. They are both superpowers, but what exactly is our value brought to them? Yeah, so Southeast Asia has been described by many people as the battlefield for supremacy between the US and China. It is considered the front line in terms of the competition between the US and China. There are reasons for it. Our value add, as you describe it, is actually in two key areas, I think. The very first one is actually to do with us being the fastest growing region in the whole world. Africa is also growing very quickly, but Southeast Asia is growing very, very quickly. There is a reason why some people have described Southeast Asia as Asian century. We are a key hub for manufacturing services infrastructure. We have some of the fastest growing economies, including Vietnam, Philippines, and also Indonesia as well. We have a relatively young population, which means that although I must caveat that because young population, but we are actually facing aging society. That is actually a problem that very few people actually know about that. All our countries are facing aging society. Of course, we know that for Singapore. We ask you relatively young in that sense. It also is a key note for global supply chains. We know how important that is now in terms of value addedness for the superpowers who are trying to diversify and look for new networks and to reduce reliance on just one single country or things like that. We are very important, therefore, for some of the strategies of these two superpowers. We are China's largest trading partner and we are also a very important economic partner for the United States. We are also a vital hub for semiconductors, particularly these Singapore actually. We are also critical minerals. All these things are very important for the battle for the system between the United States and China. The other reason why we are important and as you described, value added for the two superpowers is that we are sitting at the intersection of two big oceans, specific ocean, the Indian Ocean, which means that we sit where the vital roads, fighter lanes or sea lanes or communication are at. Malacca straight is extremely important for shipping of goods and it just applies for both China and the United States. If you really want to control the seas, it is important for the United States for naval supremacy, so naval superiority, you need to actually have access to this part of the world in terms of the sea lanes. Economically, strategically in terms of sea lanes, Southeast Asia is actually extremely important. My first immediate question to you is that if you look at what, for example, President Trump is doing, there seems to be increased focus back in his hemisphere, mainly Europe and for example Latin America. Will Southeast Asia now be once again being the background despite the importance that you have pointed out? Yeah. So the very interesting thing is that with the US attention in the Middle East now, especially with what's going on with Iran, and also obviously turning back to Latin America with his decoration of Trump's coral relief, coral relief of the Monroe doctrine. You're imagining that Southeast Asia is actually not that important. We have always feared this. It is not the first time that we worry about the US turning away from us because the big question for all of us in the region, especially for US allies in the region, is what happens with US presence in the region after the Cold War. So the 1990s were grappled with all these questions, regrettably with whether the United States will stay in the region, what happens to a naval base is that the United States have. Our allies are going to be abandoned, especially an ally like Japan, probably worry small. And you did see that there is a drawdown US presence right now to the Cold War, the naval bases and the Philippines were gone and there were all these problems with naval bases also been Japan. So this is not first time we are facing this kind of problems. It's always been a struggle for allies, especially in the region to try and capture the US, let the US make the US stay in the region. This is chasing after the US. So this is what in political science when we talk about alliances, we mention, we call this fear of abandonment, right? So this fear of abandonment is something that allies always fear, fear. Now just to say that for us, the rest of us were not allies, it is not to say that we don't need the US, we do because the US plays a very vital role as a security guarantor in the region. We want all the major powers to be in the region as a way to balance each other. We are mainly full of small states, smaller states, I wouldn't say, called Indonesia a smaller state, but it's a relatively weaker state compared to the great powers, right? But we want all the other powers in the region so that they can balance each other. In the same way, the US is welcome in the region because it balances a few things. It maintains freedom of navigation in places like South China Sea. It is security guarantor for places like Taiwan and for countries like Japan, South Korea. There is always a fear of China that they have and this is a form of balancing, the US presence, a form of a guarantee, a balance, right? In the sense, it is very important for us to have the US in the region. It economically as well. We look at the US, I mean, some people think that we look at China and we think of China as being the most important economic partner that we can have. But we often forget that the largest source of FDI, front-end investment is actually US. The US is our largest foreign investor in Asia, in Southeast Asia in particular. We look to the US for economic goodies, security goodies. We exercise a lot with the US. We have this multilateral party kind of exercises like Kobra Gold, Super Garuda Shield. Singapore has a real mark. We are not an ally but we are an important partner, security partner. So for us, is the US where not to turn back from us is a great cause for us. It means less stability for us. But I want to say that despite what President Trump is saying, I think one very important thing that we need to be aware of is that the alliances are still intact. US presence in the region has actually not gone down. It's actually during the Biden administration, there were all these enhanced defense agreements with allies in the region with the Philippines, which are planned with Korea and then also with Australia. We have court and then squirt and then orcas. It actually shows that the US is staying in the region. So we might fear that the US is turning away from us. But institutionally, in terms of alliance, the alliance system is still very much intact and alive. So this is something that we should actually see for ourselves. I mean, there is a lot of talk out there about how the US is moving away. This is going to move out of here. This is going to go back to its traditional backyard, which is Latin America and Europe. But we have to see if the facts on the ground, the facts on the ground is that alliance system is really still very much intact. I guess going forward will actually be stronger or will it actually be weaker, especially when one, for example, looks at the domestic considerations that the US have. And then I think it's maybe perhaps more plausible for them to kind of focus more at home. You'll see the US. focusing at home, but look at these actions right now. I think it's quite amazing the things that is doing around the world. I mean, amazing in a slightly horrified way. Sometimes I look at these actions in Venezuela and also in Iran. I have a very confused and very conflicted attitudes towards them. At one point I will look, oh my gosh, this kind of interventions is just horrifying, right? But at the same time, with the efficiency that the US military is able to move into these areas, it's like also at the same time very amazing the strength that the US military has in it's still very much intact. So I, well, one might think that the US is turning inwards. I think it's turning inwards in terms of trade. I think it's turning away from globalisation. It's turning away from international institutions. But when it comes to security interventions or maintaining what a considers world peace and stability, I think the US is too very much out there. Yeah. Yeah. So I would say we should take different slices of what the US is trying to do and judge each slide for itself. That's a very important nuance actually. I think there were some polls out there, whether there's actually domestic support for US action in Iran. And actually the polls show that there is actually very little support. So you can see that when it comes to certain types of foreign policy, the Trump administration has not always followed what the domestic people, its Americans want, but has followed its own path with its own reasoning as a why is doing all these things. Of course, different stakeholders within American politeness establishment have their own agendas. And they are not necessarily always aligned. But in this case, this is something that is really quite interesting and how it doesn't actually follow domestic sentiments. So Trump administration, while wanting to appeal to Americans, I think they will, they have their own constructions, especially when it comes to security, matters and foreign policy. What are those considerations in your view? One thing about Trump, which I find interesting, and I just want to cover this. I'm not an American foreign policy person, but it is interesting about Trump is that he he wants to be number one. Yeah. He wants to be number one in the world. It's something to do with his pride, American pride, American place in the world. So it's very unlikely that despite all this talk about cooperating with China and all that that that that Trump will seat space to China or to another power in the world. He wants to be always winning. He will make deals, but he will make sure that the deals are always in the favor. Yeah. So I think there are all these different interests within the establishment that somehow become aligned when it comes to some of this security and foreign policy issues. Yeah. You mentioned this part about fearing. You talk about this fear of US abandonment, and it reminded me of something that Ambassador Billahari spoke to me about in a previous episode where he was talking about the limits, the change in the maybe limits has all the consensus around American presence in the region, where in the past when US print military presence was very large and Singapore. We will hear maybe protests from our Southeast Asian neighbors, but when we renew their partnership between 1992, premise that lead them and President Trump, there was almost nothing. To a certain extent, he attributed it to maybe a failure in Chinese foreign policy. So I guess the question I have is, where is this fear actually really stemming from? If we take the view that China has risen, it has ascended, but does it really pose a serious security threat to the region? The way we look to China is very mixed. We see China quite differently from the West, sees China. China is good for the region because it is an economic burden for the region. The region has grown, has benefited from China's growth itself, especially after the 2000s. The economy is a dependent system of markets and investments in infrastructure, the trade that we have with China. All these are well-known initiatives. All these have been actually good for our economies. Obviously now there is a little bit of a mixed picture with China's overcapacity, but still I think the region has a whole benefited economically from China's growth. Now, there is still the stress of China. Primarily, there are many factors and for every single country in the region, there are differences. The historical legacy that we worry about Vietnam, worries about, in its historical memories, there's all these relations. There's past with China where there's a history of Chinese invasion of Vietnam many, many years ago. Some people would say that Vietnamese nationalism is built on anti-Chinese sentiments. Now, this is not to say that their relationship is no good. The relationship between Vietnam and China is a complicated one, but they are able to resolve their problems and keep relations stable, primarily because they have party-to-party relations. A lot of problems are being soft behind the scenes. That in a way contrasts how Vietnam handles a South China city sput, in China as opposed to the way the Philippines handles a South China city sput with China, which is a lot more confrontational, no-back channels to speak off in terms of trying to negotiate a position. This historical ties two methods and it colors the perception of how we look China as a security threat or not. Whether we have a territorial dispute, the Philippines has. That's why it sees China as a threat and that's why it enhances its agreements, its defence agreement with defence treaty with the United States and working closely now with Japan and also Australia in dealing with the security architecture and dealing with security situation in Southeast Asia. By and large, there are also other considerations. There is that racial consideration. If you know of the history of racial problems in the region, particularly with the Chinese presence in the early days when countries are doing nation-building efforts. We see that in Asia, riots that were the pretty recent, actually, anti-Chinese riots, self-pretty recent. So there is a fear of Chinese influence as well. And that's a consideration because which is actually very understandable because every country in Southeast Asia is still engaged in nation-building. It is an incomplete project. It is not complete. Nation-building in Southeast Asia is not complete. I mean, you think about our histories as independent nations. It's recent. So all these considerations come to play in how we react towards China. There is a recognition that China is good for us in many ways, but we also fear Chinese dominance. So one of the things that I want to differentiate is I think the region is okay with an accepting of Chinese influence. I think we see it's inevitable. Primarily because we are so close, it is our largest neighbor. So Chinese influence, I think we consider it as inevitable and acceptable. And maybe at some point in some ways also good because it does bring economic benefits to us. But I don't think the region is okay with the idea of Chinese dominance. Now why are we not okay with the idea of Chinese dominance? One, I think it's in our DNA to like diversity. It's always been the case that we welcome all the major powers into the region because diversity means balance of power. So each of these major powers will balance each other out. So that's one reason. We like diversity. It is part of our DNA. The second is that the US is still a very important economic partner. It is the largest foreign investor. It is our security guarantor. So the US cannot be excluded. We cannot have the Chinese dominating such that the US is not no longer in the region. And the other thing is that we got our sovereignty very, very carefully and very jealous. And any threats to that sovereignty is something that we will always be pushing against resisting. And the other thing I mentioned just now, there is that entire Chinese sentiment that's still in the region. So there is that distrust, especially now with the newer arrivals of Chinese labor in certain countries. There is some pushback from the population. But I think to be fair on this point about Chinese labor, the Chinese have actually been responding. I just went to Laos recently, brought a group of students there and I go to Laos very often. We always talk about Chinese labor in Laos and all that. But in the last few years, the Chinese have actually been training a lot of Laos workers, especially for instance in running [BLANK_AUDIO] high-speed railway or the so-called high-speed railway, which is a subject of my book Reversify and it is they have been training the workers in not just in soft skills like services but also in technical skills and engineering so they can run the railway by themselves. So the Chinese workers who initially were manning the train stations and working in the trains are now slowly being replaced by law workers. So to be fair the Chinese they have been listening to the region in a sense. When you talk about diversification reminds me of this idea that Bhagita we jaoan from Indonesia talks about which is like if one was to conceptualize our relationship with the US and China we can get a lot of access to financial capital through the US by what you talked about FDI for example and then for China it's actually especially for the developing countries is access to technology. Yes, and a much cheaper price right so it's 70% of say a US capability at 30% the price. Yeah and that that need for diversification is actually what would probably allow and able further development especially if you're in a developing path to war. I like to kind of get you to focus a little bit more on Chinese foreign policy outlook. You previously talked about this idea of Chinese policy being both assertive and insecure the same time. Many of us are not maybe training the foreign policy speak so let's break it down right what does it mean for China's foreign policy to be first maybe insecure and then we talk about its assertive rule. Okay so I think when I described it before as insecure and assertive that was the period of the wolf or a diplomacy. But you have seen that since since then there has been a turning down of that wolf or a diplomacy. It hasn't China hasn't been that strident in the way that it's been speaking out probably because it realizes that it's counterproductive as in from the outside looking in as you know other countries looking to all this wolf or diplomacy. It's been counterproductive because China just looks so belligerent right and great powers honestly would not want to be a belligerent. Co-Ocean is one of the most costly way of trying to get your things your way your things to go your way and they seldom work. So this this wolf or diplomacy has gone away primarily because it doesn't really work and the second thing is the Chinese economy is actually in trouble now. So there isn't that much of you know like a chest-dumping thing that they can they can do right now. The insecurity stems from well partly their economic problems right now that which it's going to take a very long while to get off especially the real estate problem. But also it was at a time when I think the regime was doing a lot of things to try and consolidate its power. So there were inter corruption campaigns going on, projects that were going on and the insecurity impact stems from that. So you can see this this this insecurity and assertiveness that came together but I think it's less so now that that wolf or diplomacy has gone away. China I think realized it really is counterproductive to do some of these chest-dumping kind of stuff that they were doing before. They still are facing internal problems and that's without doubt. So that that that but I feel that the leadership is actually quite firm now. Okay. It's in a consolidated position. But actually it just won't more point. You see this insecurity and assertiveness thing happening to the United States too. This is exactly what's happening with the US now right? It's primarily because it's afraid of its own relative decline. It's afraid that the world is progressing ahead. China is its peer competitor going charging ahead while it's falling behind. That's why you see languages like oh they have been cheating us. They have been now it's time for payback. All this kind of language is like an insecure power. It comes from a place it stems from a place of insecurity that you are falling behind and therefore you need people to pay up. You tend to become less generous. You tend to be speculative and you tend to less shout. So great powers do that because you know if I don't know whether you did at all and any at all by power transition theories. Power transition theories tell you that when a power is in relatively decline or considers itself or perceive itself to be relatively decline it may do things like start the war. I'm not saying that either China or the US will do that. But I'm saying that there is always that desire to claw on and hang on to its power so that it doesn't decline further. So this insecurity and assertiveness kind of paradox can co-exist. Yeah. Yeah. I wanted to ask you about this idea of insecurity because if you look at it's assertive if you look at it's assertiveness in the past few years like when you pointed out it has kind of torn down but there is this sense that China remains insecure right in its outlook. There's many aspects to it as to how far historically you really want to go. I mean you want to go back to history then there's always one thing that China like Russia actually and Zaris Russia always worried about the security of the borders. And that's a big thing. Historically as always in the case they have always needed to fight the hordes you know the Kodamba bearings historically right. The security of his borders always been and this is natural because these are continental powers with huge long borders how to maintain the security is a good reason why the Great Wall of China was built right to keep out the hordes right. Currently China is settled most of its border issues with its neighbors except for the maritime issues maritime borders with that's why you see what's happening with the South China Sea and the other one is actually with India the borders have not been resolved. So you see this there's all these disputes that are going on the conflicts have been going on low level conflicts but they're ongoing. Currently because China is worried about its borders. And you can see this in history of of of during maritime as well right. It's right. Mal tried to move all the the the biggest assets economy accepts that the Chinese have inland away from the coast because that's the way it's greatest vulnerability is the Americans are there Japan is there so that's and they have been attacked from the sea before from Japan all these you know all these the the the worries have always been on the eastern sea board. The western sea board is a different case primarily because there's the Himalayas right that is a natural barrier but it still has this dispute with with China. Now we saw this issue the interesting thing is thing that we're actually looking at and how is the borders with Myanmar with with with Laos where all the scams are happening. So you see China reacting and to meaning because again it is about the security of its borders and how its citizens are being affected because they're being trafficked and they are victims of fraud. And so in other words what I'm saying is that this insecurity historically and currently stems from this this idea of the borders. Obviously there are other reasons for for insecurities but it's going to be take a long time to unpack this one. Yeah well it gives a high level sense. Yeah it's just to give us a sense of like where this insecurity stem from and I see that because if one was to contrast for example say the US right like people talk about the US as being relatively secure. You're very secure. That you know as a friendly neighborhood. Yeah it's the largest power is two oceans. So then the flip side would be then you know in China like why actually is it really insecure about given the fact that it is still by far in the region the biggest economy the biggest power. So why would you know think or why would assume that actually there isn't much to be insecure about in that sense. Yeah but long borders you know and other major powers that are in this region what would you which it considers to be expectate. All these things are going to be something that you will be concerned about. Yeah. And you talked about the rise of China in the region and now we're seeing some of the kind of mixed effects. One example is like for example the BRI where we think about the fact that it's improved in interconnectivity between the regions. But the same time there are trade-offs that come with it. Yeah. Like for you to kind of help us understand you know what the trade-offs that come with it I think remains under appreciated today in public this course of a BRI. The BRI comes with a lot of opportunities but they also allow risk for recipient countries. Now opportunities because of course China is providing loans, aids, lay A and grant for infrastructure development. Something that the region desperately needs and the region, the poorer parts of the region, doesn't have the money for. And I keep coming back to Laos because Laos is the most obvious example. I'll give you more examples about Laos. But the need for connectivity, the need for infrastructure, China, the BRI is one of the best answers that has been brought up to the region. The Penn Asia Railway, which my book Rivers of Iron is about, was an idea that was conceived in Asia, Southeast Asia, by Southeast Asia itself. But it became, we don't have the money to build it. So when China grew, and China, in the 2000s, become richer, this is when China could export its technology, export its capital. And that's when the Penn Asia Railway, or at least one part of it, is being realised now, right? In Laos and also in Indonesia, in Jakarta, Bandung, high-speed rail. So that's the wonderful opportunities that the BRI brought to the region. Now there are trade-offs and there are trade-offs in terms of risk. The risk that we are thinking about will be things like risk to the environment or some of these infrastructure projects. Risk to local communities, right? Risk of Chinese influence, right? And there's a reason why countries like India are not part of the BRI. They don't want that connectivity to China because China is a threat to them. Imagine that if you have built a railway and it's easy for, railways are being used to transport troops all the time anyway, historically, right? So that's the element to that. And Vietnam, although a signatory participant of the BRI, it has always been a little bit more cautious about Chinese projects within because that means bringing Chinese workers, creating some form of a strain on social fabric. It also enhances Chinese presence in a country which has traditionally been, I mean, Vietnam, which has traditionally been a wary of invasions from China because that has happened historically. So those are the trade-offs. And so the trade-offs are your sovereignty, right? Let me give you an example of Laos now because Laos is a very good example of what happens when Chinese money can bring. I'm not talking about debt diplomacy, okay? Just going to be very clear. I don't agree with the description of what China is doing as debt diplomacy, as in the trap. As in purposely going out having a strategy to attract poor countries into debt. I don't agree with that. I think that it is actually a consequence and not necessary and probably an unintended consequence of some of these projects because eventually countries will have some of these poorer countries, they have difficulties being up. Now let me give you an example of what happened to the Laos state-owned enterprise for electrical transmission system. So this enterprise called EDL, for short EDL, for short, is in charge of the state's transmission electricity transmission system. Even bankrupt. And it's not China's fault that it just went bankrupt. So a Chinese enterprise, state-owned enterprise power grid came in and bought some of the shares and now it owns 90% of this national enterprise that is responsible for electricity of the whole country transmitting them. That is a vulnerability. When your state power grid is now being held by an external party, that means if it can be used as a formal leverage, you can turn off electricity, it won't happen to the country. I'm not saying that China will do that, but it is a trade-off in terms of that you sacrifice a bit of your sovereignty here. Because these are key installations. In Mindev's speak, these are key installations. And if you allow a party to actually control your electricity grid, it is a vulnerability and it impacts your sovereignty. So I'm saying that there are trade-offs, sovereignty, cultural, in terms of environmental impact, there are trade-offs. But at the same time, there are all these gains. So that's why there's this kind of attitude towards China, a mixed off like, you know, China is great, you know, bringing all these economic benefits, but also a little weariness and constant about the kind of influence that China can wield within the domestic context of countries. Hey guys, I've been building this podcast for about a year and a half and I thought it would be useful to share the exact playbook I used to build out this podcast from zero to one. In this playbook, I share with you what it takes to set up your podcast, how to create a world-class experience for your guests and how to pitch to guests even when you are just starting out. If you are a business owner, an investor or even an institution, I think this playbook will help you build your podcast better. And guess what, I'm not putting it behind a paywall. I'm giving the entire secret sauce away to you for free. And this is with the great help of our friends at Podster. You can go to Singapore.podster.com/02pro or click the link in my description to access and download the whole playbook for free. I hope this will help you on your podcasting journey. Now back to the show. If you talk about the Laosian example, what would actually be the way out? Would there be a scenario where, for example, they could buy back or maybe re-install or re-nationalize their power grid? What would actually be the endgame? Or is it simply to just kind of concede that as part of the law? So the concession is 25 years. The concession that the Chinese company for the electricity grid is for 25 years. So the question is can China can Laos get it back? Doesn't have the money? In terms of credit rating, Laos credit rating is C plus by Moody. Moody gives it a C pass grid. It means that it defaults since debts, it cannot repay its debts. So it's highly in that country and it's not just to China, although I think China holds the majority part of its debt. But if you don't have the capacity, you don't have the funding, you don't have the financial capacity, you don't have the resources to develop your human capital, then this is the problem that a country like Laos will face. It's trying to regretrate from being the least developed country, but it's facing a lot of challenges along the way. It needs help from others. In Chinese rhetoric, we have this view that they do not want to become a hedge-em-on or they do not want to follow the US and become a regional hedge-em-on. But as you pointed out, I think in other conversations and discussions that it also very much seeks to shake a cyno-centric order in some of these Asia. Can you speak a little bit more on that? Yeah, I can because primarily I'm just saying that this is what all great powers do. They want to secure their neighborhood because if you're a good power with very long borders, you want to secure neighborhood. It's the same thing that the United States does with the Monroe doctrine. The same thing that Russia is doing now in Europe. It's also the same way that India behaves in South Asia. This is your backyard. You don't want a potential adversary to come in and gain a foothold or more than a foothold, right? You want to secure your backyard, your borders and your interests. So China wants, I believe, regional dominance. And this is not the first time I've said it in several of my publications because it is traditional backyard. It is to ensure security. It wants to ensure that the region will take its interest into account when making decisions, especially foreign policy decisions. And it doesn't want the region to take sides with the US and its own expense. But I want to cover it to say that this is what all great powers do. So I'm not constigating the Chinese. I'm actually saying that this is a very normal behavior. Of course, this is not acceptable for everyone of us in the region who are not Chinese. As smaller powers or weaker powers, we have our own sovereignty to safeguard against. But this is a very normal behavior for great powers. And we see some of these things to happening because you can see that the BRI is one of them where the BRI actually amateurs countries into a set of strategic economic relations with China ads at the center, as the hub. Creation or alternative institutions like the AIB, Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank, and also creating things like the long-term mecon corporation in the Mecon region. Are these institutions, oh, and not forget sanction forum, which is a competitor sort of to what they perceive, what the Chinese perceive to be a Western centric Shangri-La dialogue. So I'll these alternative institutions also another way of sticking a claim on the region, on building a security, economic architecture that is centered on China. So these are some of the things it's I think it's trying to do. Yeah. Yeah. How is the region's response been to that kind of Chinese framing? When we talk about the region, we are now ASEAN has 11 members. Yeah. So everyone is going to react very differently. So in an effort to try to understand this, I actually, me and another scholar, my co-author, we actually did a survey of how regional elites, we're talking about elites, so decision makers, policy makers, leaders of countries, perceive Chinese influence and how whether the region is a Chinese-led region. So the survey actually showed that most countries of the six countries that we surveyed, I will explain to you the methodology, if you're interested, but basically we surveyed six countries, elites of six countries, and most of the respondents more than 50% actually said that ASEAN is more influential than, say, China or the United States. Overwhelmingly, more than 80% of the respondents actually said that they identify most with ASEAN, rather than China or with the US. So there is that sense that there is a regional identity. There is a sense that you want to try and build up ASEAN, that it can be a much stronger organization that can stand at the center of the region. That's why all this talk about ASEAN's spirituality and unity, but this is what small states do. They actually gather around, they come together and co-aless in a forum or in an international organization, or in this case a regional institution to gain strength in numbers. This is what small states do. So there is a sense that we need to stand out on. We need to take care of ourselves and that we need to use ASEAN in a much more effective way to counter all these imbalances in the region to deal with great power rivalry. And I think in that sense it's going to be very important for us in 2027 when Singapore is ASEAN chair. And I expect the foreign ministry to actually have a very robust program to strengthen ASEAN. Yeah. I'd like to get you to maybe speak a little bit more about the methodology. And perhaps you'll be useful to kind of unpack. Why was this survey needed as opposed to the kind of literature that's been produced to kind of understand ASEAN, right? What do you think was a gap in the markets through the speed? So I think that there is actually no study out there that look at how elites in the region look at Chinese efforts in setting up a China-centric, a China-centric region order, right? A China-led regional order. If I mean if I'm right that China wants regional dominance and I'm pretty sure I'm right, we need to see how elites actually react to it. And why is it important to survey elites? So where elites because elites are the decision makers when it comes to foreign policy? Now, most citizens of countries are interested in better and better issues, which means domestic politics is going to be more important to them. And in a way domestic policies are going to be shaped more by public opinion. But in the case of foreign policy, traditionally it is where policy makers have the room to make the decisions. Obviously, there will be cases where there are some foreign policy decisions that cannot be immune from public opinion. Gaza is one that is going to governise public opinion all over the world and definitely in Southeast Asia and Singapore, as we have seen recently, right? But where it doesn't affect these kind of very sensitive issues or that it doesn't require mobilisation of resources, essentially from policy is the purview of elites. So the survey methodology was to focus on the elites of six countries, primarily in the Nasir, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Philippines, and then Malaysia. Do I say Malaysia? Thailand. Thailand. Okay, so six countries. Now these six countries are primarily what I would call these like e-cases, looks like to one a China-led regional order, primarily because they either have a declared independent from policy, which is like Malaysia in Indonesia, or they have, they are allies of the United States, which is Thailand and Philippines. Now Thailand has a lot of Chinese influence in there, but they are still allies of the United States. And then you have countries like Singapore, which is actually an important partner to both China and to the United States in different realms, but an important partner. So these countries are considered what I would consider at least likely. So if they, when they are least likely meaning that if their respondents show a great support for a China-led order, then the study will have a lot of validity. But as it turns out, the study showed that these countries actually do not overwhelmingly look to ASEAN rather than China to be the center of the region. And the survey is based on something called quota sampling. Now the best type of surveys are actually done through random sampling. But in our case, you decided on quota sampling because we needed a certain type of elites. So we need to have certain types of elites that were in the survey. So across the six countries, on average, there's about a third that is from policy makers, about two thirds from business leaders, and a very small proportion from academics and other types of elites. So the people, the age group on average is about 34.4 years, which is quite a good age, not too young and not too old. So I think it's a very good average age. And we also have, all of them have about 12 years of working life, so pretty senior, people not so young or too old. And most of them have university education. So they would qualify as elites. So that's how we ensure that the survey is robust and done in a proper way. When people were talking about ASEAN's centrality, it wasn't more of us to have there as a statement, to kind of hatch themselves. How should we understand this ASEAN centrality in context? To me, ASEAN centrality and unity is actually really aspirational. Obviously, I think that the region will be worse off with ASEAN. So in a sense that the critiques of ASEAN are a bit unfair, we are never meant from day one to be like the EU. It was never supposed to be legalistic, based on formal institutions and laws and rules, but based on the idea that countries can come together and have a platform to talk to each other. So a lot of things happen behind ASEAN. We haven't seen conflicts, primarily because a lot of things happen behind ASEAN. And this kind of informer to you works well for the region because we are so diverse. If we are more uniform, we might have something that is more legalistic, but we are so diverse, you have to have room for that diversity to play out. So therefore, hard and fast rules, and principles and all that will be very difficult to be implemented or accepted or work will work. ASEAN, the region will be worse off. That will be the counterfactual. I've got to think about what is the counterfactual here. But ASEAN, as we enter in the 21st century, I think we need to change. We need to change primarily because the threats have changed and morphed. There are a lot more existential threats now, and it's not just we used it in a Cold War period when ASEAN was born, what's the threat? The threat was nuclear war. The existential threat now, there are so many, there's climate change, there's health, public health issues, pandemics, right? Climate change is definitely a big threat and we should require action of many, many people in many, many countries. So in other words, we are not, ASEAN as a whole, it's not well placed to deal with the challenges of the 21st century. We do very well in other things. I would say that for example, in the recent piece that I wrote for Foreign Affairs, how multilateralism can survive. In that piece, I talk about how my co-author and I am a co-author from Brazil, so she should talk about some of the Latin American stuff. But what it was obvious from that piece was that what ASEAN countries, what South Asia really does where I was in trade. We have been extremely innovative and it's quite amazing. I mean, and assembly-wide, because trade is the lifeblood of Singapore, there's also lifeblood of the region. We are all small and open economies. Without trade, without globalization, we're all going to be dead. So we have come up with very innovative things. We move forward with our CEP. We also, you know, many of us are members of CPTPP. Singapore just came up with something that's called CPTP, CPP stands for Future of Investment and Trade Partnership. So the idea of this CPTP is to try and innovate ways of maintaining open trade and to cut down on barriers of trade. And this is Singapore's initiative, but we are 16 members as of now. And the idea was to bring some of these innovations at our level right after the WTO. Because WTO is totally defamed now. It's completely not working. So at the regional level, we are working on these issues to try and keep trade going. So we work very well when it comes to trade. But we do very poorly when it comes to security matters. We cannot do anything about the situation in Myanmar. We have, we are also quite helpless when the border dispute happened between Thailand and Cambodia. So we are not very good in security aspects. We need to do more in terms of conflict prevention and mitigation. I don't think we can do resolution. Resolution usually requires hard laws. We don't have that. That's not in our mandate of ASEAN. But we can definitely do more in terms of like how to prevent conflict. We can do more in terms of security realm. We're doing very well in trade, economics, we need to do more in security. But the inter-Acentric remains low in the southern regard. We still haven't been able to crack that. Yeah. I think that's a pity because we tend, that's because there's competition among ASEAN countries. The economies are too much alike. So this has to be resolved in some way or the other. I think there is a lot of potential for that. The idea was perhaps RCP can help to push this along. But RCP is still in early days and we need to buff to beef up that inter-regional trade. Yeah. I have a following question about the security component. Why is it that we are very weak in this area, especially given the fact that the genesis of ASEAN in the first place was actually in response to this view of wanting to ensure our own security. That's a region, right? So why are we weak in that? I think because there are territorial disputes among us, right? That's one thing. So several of the ASEAN states are criminals of the southern sea dispute. Especially in the mainland, borders are artificially created. So border disputes can happen. Artificially created as in historical legacies of from a couple of times borders were created then. Before the colonial countries colonizers came, there were all these people that can move across borders. They don't consider themselves as a state. Security issues are much, economics is something we all can agree on. We all want prosperity. So this is an area where we have common agreement, therefore we can move forward. But security is too difficult because there are territorial disputes. There are historical issues that are there. And even more than economic issues touch on the sovereignty of nation states. And Southeast Asian nations got their security very, very tightly. So maybe I should share a little bit about this project that has been re-given a grant, a large grant by the social science research content Singapore. It's about regional recisions. Tomorrow at school we have a panel on this and the project is going to be launched. But the idea of regional resilience, why do we need regional resilience? We need nation states to go and think broader than their national resilience. That's how we think about our countries. We got our sovereignty, we think about resilience as national resilience. We only worry about our little borders. But we don't think of ourselves as having regional resilience. How to build regional resilience? How to build resilience as a whole? And that has a lot to do with our sense. So resilience is not just in trade, but in economic growth. But resilience also in dealing with security matters. The things that can break us on and fragment countries and the region. And especially in great power rivalry now. We need to be resilient to a and all to stay together. Yeah. So this project that we have, that we're going to launch soon. If you want full access to the transcripts of every episode, just head over to ykey.com. And you'll get full and free access to each transcript. I always thought that the grassroots level. There's always been a challenge with the creation of an ASEAN identity. I think part of it is attributed to what you've pointed out where, you know, there are some maybe systemic issues with regards to security that has not been resolved. But at the same time, I think at a cultural or even like personal level, we just haven't had that kind of ASEAN construction project. I think like the EU been true. So I speak to my friends from Europe and they talk about for example, something like the Erasmus project, right? Where you have like the EU commission literally sponsor people from Italy to study in Germany, from people from France to study in other parts of Europe, for example. So there is this creation of a cross-border pen European identity that's cultivated. Whereas in ASEAN, it's like it kind of just, yeah. Or everyone is different. So we just kind of leave it be. And that just really happens at maybe the policy maker level. Singapore does a lot in the Eastings. We have in our secondary schools, right? We have ASEAN scholars. So we offer scholarships with no obligations to regional countries, very good students from regional countries to study our universities in our secondary schools and then universities. But so people, this is a public, a regional public good, which in the long term will pay back to us. It will come back to us in positive terms. People may not understand that, but it's actually going to benefit us in a longer run because you'll have a generation of very good people, whether they are not being government or in private sector. That will remember the days is spent studying in Singapore. And the friendships and the network was that being built up, right? And then, so Singapore actually, and then anywhere else now, has this ASEAN fellowships and scholarships, they are aimed at getting really good people to study in the US or to have some form of collaboration with the US. And the focus is really on Southeast Asia. So you can see all these pieces that are coming together to build up this idea of ASEAN identity and ASEAN resilience. So, you know, it's slow. It's going to take time. Nation building projects take time. Nation building projects are going to take even longer time. So, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't do anything. We have to start somewhere. Would the reverse be something that we need to work on as well? Like sending Singapore into other parts of ASEAN, more energy? So I think this is also something that any of us is looking at. There's a reason why I'm being my students to allow. It's part of us trying to get to know our own region well. We have something in legal and new schools called RKYPP in Asia. And we bring all the students from the various graduate programs to one country in Southeast Asia where they learn about things about, you know, different things. Public policy related stuff in the school. For me, I bring my students to understand law from policy. To understand laws because, you know, nobody knows laws. But laws is such a fascinating country. With all the challenges of a small state. There are so few countries that have that kind of challenges that they have. Surrounded by five much bigger countries along the sport. And being completely learned locked, you know, no access to trade and see as a result. So how do we survive? So those are the questions. And I think that through these kind of projects, and NUS, I know, talking about the main campus NUS, have their own all these projects where you go out Southeast Asia, bring students there to understand other parts of Southeast Asia. It's all part of it. And I know in secondary school now, there is called a regional studies program in some of these secondary schools, not all of them. A regional studies program where you understand, you learn another language in the region of the region. And you learn about these countries. So, well, the exchanges are not as robust, for example, if you, you know, we sent people to have exchange programs, say in the West or in Europe, in the US, in East Asia. There are all these other forms of interactions they are still ongoing. We have, you know, institutional tie-ups with universities. but also at the student level that all these visits. that ongoing so that we all understand Southeast Asia a bit more. Singapore takes a chance to be in the 27th of Asia. You alluded to it earlier in that you have great expectations, I suppose, of what our country can do. Against the question I have is, what should Singapore actually do in that one year of championship? How can we actually move the needle? One thing that I'm aware of that Singapore really want to do is to have some regional projects that most countries can work together on. We are very much interested in doing something about climate. We are interested in dealing with things on technology. And the most recent I've heard is that we're also interested in. Oh yeah, okay, so maritime domain as well will be interested in getting some stuff going. But the most recent one I've heard of was that we're hoping that we can get nations and countries to act together to deal with the scams, the scams pandemics. Which is actually a very real issue, the stress national climate thing. And it's considered as a project that could actually bring even rivals together. For example, the US and China are completely affected by this scams situation, scams pandemics, that citizens are being scammed, trafficked and also some things. So in other words, there is that synergies that can come about to do with scams. So I think these are the areas that we are thinking of. I mean, I don't exactly know. I'm not from a pharmaceutical industry, so I don't know exactly what the plans are. But I think these are some of the areas they'll be looking into. If you have one piece of advice you want to give to a student who's entering the working world today, what will that piece of advice be? You need gumption, you need passion, and you need traction. Traction means you need to keep out the momentum. So don't look at the state of the world and think, "Oh, there's nothing else we can do and do all those thumping stuff." Because that's not the right way to deal with the challenges of the world, because the world is yours. In the future, it will all be yours. And you are the ones who are to deal with all the problems that come in the way. So there has to be a sense of urgency in going out and having all this desire to try and make the world better for yourself and also for the generation after yourself. So you must have an attitude that you won't. Have an attitude that won't say, "Dai, that kind of attitude." But that determination, the willingness to work out. I think that has to do. That is true for every generation. Since. I think that's the best I can advise I can give you. Never say, "Dai, work hard and always pursue traction." I think that's very good advice. With that, Prof. Sadiya, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you very much, Keith. It's been an honor and privilege to be on air with you. Thank you for listening to today's episode. If you are watching this on YouTube, please consider subscribing and turning on notifications for whenever new episodes are out. If you're on Spotify or Apple, it will help us greatly if you believe a five-star review on those platforms. Once again, thank you for tuning in to the Fireroom Podcast.