Malaysia’s ASEAN Chairmanship 2025: Challenges and Opportunities ft. Dato Dr Ilango | Episode 53 - Are We OK?

Highlight One of the biggest problem that ASEAN political security community has even until today, it's about preventing the external powers from competing or bringing their competition into this part of the world. Speaker 2 Welcome back to the Are We OK podcast, the podcast that talks about public policies and politics in ways that are accessible to you, the person on the street. This is the first episode for the new year for 2025 and I am Doctor Botta or Doctor Okm together with me is. Speaker 3 Mr. Mani, Peter. Speaker 2 And we have a special guest today all the way, formerly from Viswaputra and now himself a podcaster, Dr. Doctor Ilango Karupanan, who is the former Malaysian High Commissioner to Singapore, among his many other duties as a member of the Vishma Putra Diplomatic Corps. Welcome to this podcast, Doctor. Doctor. Speaker 1 Thank you very much, Doctor Peter. Speaker 2 For this first episode, for the new year, I thought that it would be interesting and also instructive for us to have a frank and open conversation with Doctor Ilango over Malaysia's chairmanship of ASEAN. Since it only happens once every 10 years, it's done on a rotation basis and also on some other foreign policy issues under the Madani government. But before we go into the sort of like more substantive issues of foreign policy and also Malaysia's chairmanship of ASEAN, maybe a bit of introduction. Malaysia’s chairmanship of ASEAN Thank you very much. First of all, let me thank both of you for inviting me to this show. I must say that Peter is a real role model to me because I've been watching his videos for a very, very long time. And you, Doctor Ong Kamin, another role model as well. So I'm extremely happy to be here with, you know, among people that I admire highly in the. Speaker 2 Glad you could be with us. Speaker 1 So it's about myself, right? I was born in Malacca, raised in Port Dixon, so after my primary school I was taken into the first batch of the boarding school known as Scholam and Gang Science in a Christian Milan, so which is in the boondocks in Colapila those days, you know. Background of Dato Dr. Ilango So I was over there. So I finished my studies there, went on to UK M. Speaker 2 So you you did SPM and STPM there as well? Speaker 1 Yeah, HSE those days, you know LCEMCHSE, you know, just. Speaker 2 You came. What were you studying at? Speaker 1 UKMI was initially offered medicine and science together first two weeks. In the second year I spent about two weeks in medical faculty. But then then they had another interview. They say, OK, you know, we have to reduce the number of students basically normalized in the faculty so that then I was asked to go back to science faculty and continuous studies over there. Speaker 2 And the time you came just started only this is the 80s eighties, 81. Okay, so you were batch number two or three. Yeah. Speaker 1 No, actually batch #10 already the time 7172 was the first batch. Speaker 2 Okay, okay, okay, right. I thought it was. Speaker 1 They started very small, you know, they were in Pantabaru like a college and everything. Speaker 3 You would have been a different kind of doctor if, let's say, you continued there. Speaker 1 I could have been a different type of doctor. Speaker 2 The real kind of. Speaker 1 So the first two years was Pantabaru University and then second two years was in Bangi. So I ended up doing biochemistry. So I graduated a biochemistry degree and then I did my masters there because my supervisor had a lot of money from porim and my specialization was palm oil. Speaker 2 OK. And porim. Speaker 1 Yeah, so after my degree masters, then I thought I should get a job in porim. Then I went over there. The DG at the time was also a professor of mine. He was very kind enough to say Langou, oh, sorry, we have, we have plenty of openings, but we can't offer it to you for a certain reason. So then I thought I should forget about it here and just go on overseas and like many Malaysians are doing today, you know, go overseas and try my luck over there. But along the way, somehow I had applied to the civil service. I just forgot all about it. And then on the 34th of December in 1986, there was a letter saying that you have been chosen to join the PTD, come and join for one year training in Intan from 1987. So I ended up doing my training in Intan for one whole year along the way. Of course in Intan they observe you, they see who's suitable for what kind of field, etcetera. I had expressed interest to join the Foreign Ministry, so I was interviewed by another ambassador from the foreign service and I found myself being selected to join the Foreign service. So my life had become from One Direction all the way and finally ended up in diplomacy. So by then I joined. I was in the ASEAN division first. So that was the early days of Asiento. I'm quite familiar with Asiento's day. Speaker 2 So for for contacts, where was the response patrol office at that time? Speaker 1 That was in, you know it Jalan next to Devon Basam Pustaka. Today there's an old building which is now called IDFR, which is the training arm of Vishma Putra. Actually, that used to be Tumko Abrahman's official residence, which is why it's known as Vishma Putra. Putra come from his. Speaker 2 Oh, OK, OK. Speaker 1 Yeah. So the house, they broke it down, they made it into an office building and we were occupying 3 blocks in that place. Speaker 2 And IFDR is the Institute of Foreign and Diplomatic. Speaker 1 Relations training facilities, so that's considered to be Bismaputra training arm today. But lots of fond memories over there because, you know, we are young people. We worked all night long those days without the aid of laptops and computers. Speaker 2 You know, and then at the time, KL was still the capital. Speaker 1 KL was still the capital. Yeah, yeah, yeah, correct. It was really fun. I mean, so then I selected to go and do a masters in ASEAN. After Sharva, they sent me to Paris to do to study French, to do masters as well in France and to do what do you call and study the language? So I went out to Paris. Speaker 2 Did you have a choice in whether or not to go to France? Speaker 1 I had a choice, but then I thought since I'm here I might as well try it. I don't have any of any other foreign language experience. So I spent two years bit enjoying myself immensely in Paris, first in the southern part of France. Now the French are fantastic people. They want you to love their wines. They want you to understand the cheese and the culture and everything. So I thoroughly enjoyed myself over there. And then Vismapatra, after I graduated, they I came back then they sent me to Germany, Bonn. So the case the case you say, well, you can go to Germany and practice your French. That was other funny. Speaker 3 Funny when Germany practice your French all right. Speaker 1 I think he must have been joking, man. Not because there's the openings were just inborn. It was not Berlin that time, Bonnie, because still that. Speaker 2 Was still West Germany. Speaker 1 Still Germany. So I spent three years, you know, four years over there, and then I got a bombshell of a notice asking me to go to Conakry, open a new embassy. Wow. Okay, Doctor Marte, he was very active in foreign policy. He had gone all around the world opening new embassies, right? So I was one of those selected to go and open a new embassy in West Africa and because of the French speaking country, by the way. So I went over there and started the embassy. But that was one of the most interesting experiences because Conakry was the only country that was relatively stable. We were concurrently accredited to Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea Bissau. All three were at war. And Ivory Coast, which was sort of rumbling at the time, you know. So I was there and then we had peacekeepers in Sierra Leone. Just about a year after I arrived, one day I got a call from the TKSU who's not Tansui Halim Ali, where that time was. Still that though, he called me, Say Ilan. Three of our peacekeepers have been kidnapped by the rebels. Speaker 2 Then you get rescued. Speaker 1 Yes, go. We need someone to go and negotiate and get the get their release. The Pangliban Catan Tentre had been breathing down the neck of the TKU that night saying that, look, the Russians have already gone and got their people released. We Malaysia, we need to do it. So he called me over the middle of the night and then I say, OK, then say look, but I've been reporting to you already that this is getting a little bit dicey. I won't be able to go and travel to Freetown directly because it's quite useful because we know the Charles Taylor was in Liberia, who's the mastermind of all these rebels here. So we need to negotiate directly with Charles Taylor, not with the Sierra Leone rebels. So he asked me, how do you propose to do it? So I said, well, so I said I can't even travel to Monroe because there's no flights war, No flights are available. Only UN helic helicopters are UN flight, but UN were refused to take you as a civilian. Take you if you're a military civilian, you shouldn't because they're not issued military. Well, because your service requires you to fly. You can name in Kanala. That's it, you know, so, so I say we have to negotiate on the phone. I would do the negotiating on the phone with Charles Taylor, but I need this letter from Doctor Marty. I draft you this letter, get it signed by him, send it back to me and I'll send it to Charles Taylor and I'll talk. So that's how I started the negotiation. Talk with him. So Charles Taylor said sorry, no, no, no, we don't have any Malaysians among the people that were kidnapped. By the way, for information, they kidnapped about 28 Indians, a few Kenyans and a few other. Speaker 2 People, all these were UN peacekeepers. Speaker 1 Right, the Union, it was called UNAM, Civil UN Mission in Civil India. Speaker 3 Right, right. Speaker 1 Three of them were Malaysians, so they said no, no, no, there are no Malaysians. But the problem is because they cannot recognize Malaysians. And the two other Malays also were dark. They also look like Indians as well. You know, You know, from the African perspective, they really cannot tell the difference between even three of us. They can't tell the difference. Speaker 2 He asked for anything in return. Speaker 1 Yeah, he said. Look, we want you. Malaysia is a very important country to. We want you to invest Malaysia at rebel estate in Monrovia outside of Liberia, owned by Guthrie, now part of Goodyear, you know, so. And then he told me, look, there is a Malaysian group who's actually repairing our part of Buchanan over there. You know, I said no, I can't. My mind was telling him. I said, no, I don't know Malaysian there. But obviously the man doesn't recognize who's Malaysian, right. So I thought maybe I should just take the chance to say, yeah, yeah, yeah, there are militia's there. I know doing that. And if you release these people, you know, we'll be goodwill, goodwill. We'll be more interested to do this kind of thing when once a peace comes to your country. So he say, well, it will take five days for them to release. I called Doctor Datu Alim, 25 days. He also didn't ask me why, but apparently you know why, because there's no communication between the Monrovia and the man on the ground rebels. So you have to pass a message on to a guy and the guy has to run all the way and pass messages all the way down, you know, So it takes about 5 days for the message to get down to where the guys are being held. So then they were released. They were taken by military helicopter to at the border Liberia and and Guinea and let loose. I'm still trying to get in touch with Major Ganesh, who was one of those who actually was kidnapped. He wrote a book. I want to interview him, you know, on my podcast. I'm still not able to do it. I hope if he's listening to this podcast, I hope you reach out to me and then. Speaker 3 He exciting. Speaker 1 Major, Major Ganesh. Major Ganesh. Ganesh. OK, so Guinea turned out to be a very interesting time and there were a lot of other things because we also there to help them plant rice, raised chicken and all these things. The country the second largest bauxite producer in the world. Speaker 2 Do we still have an embassy in? Speaker 1 There we still have an embassy there. They produce what do you call diamonds and Diane had a bank over there. So Dimes motors operandi was basically to go follow up wherever we opened up embassies to open up banks. So he was doing very well. The banks were doing fantastic. You know, they were all cash business, but it was an exciting time because you know the this I have to take another day to talk about this, about the experience, about teaching them about, you know, this rise and all these things. But it was also learning experience for me as a young diplomat from there, then I came back, I spent six years in policy planning, which is why I have actually a eager view about Malaysian foreign policy that I see very, very few people in the Vishwamputra will have this experience is only at the level of ministers and PM who have this level of exposure to foreign policy planning. Vishwamputra looks at all the big things where the people that we serve are the KSU minister and PM. So I travelled with them hundreds of times to all the summits and everything. So I know where our foreign policy is, how it works and how it looks. So I've got a deep understanding from there they sent me to Washington, DC There's. Speaker 2 There's high profile posting. Speaker 1 Very high profile that the KSU was happy with my performance. He thought I could handle it, so I was there. The rank of minister, minister just went one rank below ambassador and my ambassador retired after one year and they couldn't replace and I had to be there as acting ambassador for the rest about two years. So when Obama was elected, I had to represent Malaysia for the inauguration because only ambassadors and charged affairs are invited. They don't invite foreign leaders. You know that there's some talk now about this is difficult for them to handle because first of all, it does. The logistics nightmare is a nightmare. They just cannot take any other people. And plus the inauguration is very peculiar process. You know, it's not like a normal kind of thing. It's got a lot of very American culturalism inside. Speaker 2 And some those inauguration balls for example. Speaker 1 Balls and other things. So where do you fit? If you are a foreign leader, you know, surely you don't want to be like one of those crowd, right? So it would be difficult for them to manage those kind of things, which is why ambassadors are invited. Speaker 2 Because you know the culture there already. Speaker 1 We know the culture and plus we are, we will be unobtested in what you call not obtrusive into the process, right. Of course we have to be there. We participate in the ball and all the things. But plus, I think it's also a very, how do you say punishing thing because you have January 20th is the coldest day in the year. Speaker 2 In Washington. Speaker 1 Washington, you have to arrive 3 hours before the inauguration and you're sitting on the Capitol Hill outside, not inside. You know, outside it's freezing cool. I've got my long Johns, I've got few other layers and gloves and hats and thick coats. Plus we've got this chemical kind of a thing like a strip, you know, where you can actually break and put into your body the warm up. But three hours is too long that even that thing becomes cold already, you know? Speaker 2 And then could you go to the washroom? Speaker 1 Cannot go. Once you're there, you can go to washroom. You're fixed there, fixed. Plus it was blowing windy. It was a little bit shower, you know, some small little bit of rain as well. So we were there, but we were very close to where Obama was taking his oath. So it's very nice to see right up front. But along the way, you could see there was so much enthusiasm. America was coming back alive. You know, there was the Bush ending of Bush period was sort of kind of down. Speaker 2 That was the economic economy. Speaker 1 Currency. Speaker 2 Gone through? Speaker 1 Wars in Afghanistan. So there's a lot of unhappiness. Obama's time was kind of a. Speaker 2 Positivity. Speaker 1 Positivity, you know, people were crowding on the streets, people walking miles to get there, you know. So I was there for about 4 1/2 years and then I got a call from the KSU last time who told me that. I hope you enjoyed yourself enough. We are sending you to Beirut as ambassador. Oh wow. So I dare not ask why. I in fact asked him. So he said why do you want to go out? No, no, no, I didn't mean that. I'm just wondering why so. Well, it's another posting, just go and find out why. So I went to Beirut, ended up in bed. But that was also a very exciting place to be because, you know, it's all the time. Speaker 2 Bubbling in different ways in different. Speaker 1 Ways. Very different ways and coming from Washington to Beru is a real jarring experience because Washington you know, is a developed country. Just like going from born to Conakry, where born everything works. Conakry nothing works right? A country which had only 7 kilometers of roads. There you know nothing else. Everything was there. Electricity 24 hours by generator. My house, you know, in Lebanon, same thing. Electricity is only two hours a day. The rest of the day is generator. Speaker 3 It seems like every time when whenever you get a posting, it is almost like a surprise bomb being dropped to you, right? Yes. Hey, would you like to go there? They just go like ha. Speaker 1 Ha, again, my goodness, again, all this kind of stuff. And then plus I was very good friends with people like Fisk, independent, independent, everything. So right there. So he was actually my close confidant telling me how actually things don't work or work in Beirut. And Beirut was, of course, you know, the city of spies, a lot of intrigue and. Speaker 2 Tom Friedman was there also as a columnist. Speaker 1 Friedman as well. I met him as well, and then Michael Young and then all these people. So Beirut was you have to keep your ears always on the ground. Hey, what's happening now because some rally might just end violent kind of stuff and all things. And in Lebanon, you know, people gun is you can you have a gun in the house, you have a gun in the car and maybe two in a car. You know, you celebrate, you shoot in the air, you want to fight, you shoot in the air, etcetera. So just for your information, the Malaysian Ambassador Residence was on the 12th floor of an apartment. This is very odd. You know, normally Ambassador residence is a bungalow by itself with security and everything on the kitchen side. This was just before I arrived. Some shootout took place just down there, you know, and this bullet had gone right up in the air and came by down in the parabolic curve, went through the kitchen window, smashed with the glass, very powerful, right? Went to the cross the kitchen hit into the cabinet and because behind the cabinet was wall and then the bullet actually stopped ricochet and stopped. So I'm just telling you this that you could have just been washing dishes. Speaker 2 And necessarily. Speaker 1 A bullet fly by and it could have happened to you, another one victim of Beirut, without having to be involved in any particular. It was that kind of situation. Speaker 3 Did you install a bulletproof glass? No, right after. Speaker 1 That nothing, even my car was not bulletproof, you know. So we had few experiences. Very interesting time things as well because I was stopped by Hezbollah one time. I'm going to do a podcast on that as well, How to negotiate with Hezbollah for example after that. Speaker 2 What year was that? Speaker 1 That was 2010 to 2014. Then I came back. I was asked to head the European division. In this role, I was asked to take over role as a lead negotiator for a treaty that we're negotiating between EU and Malaysia known as the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement, which is stalled for a few years. And then the case you PM Najib was already under pressure because he was all the time being when the Europeans come by Kuala Lumpur, they always say hey, please let them get this speeded up, you know. So he had enough of way. He told me some of the look better get the damn thing, sorry, better get the thing sorted out. So in my case, you say it's your job now, you better sort it out. So I had to negotiate for two years, finally managed to sort it out. But along the way another interesting thing happened. MA 17 got shot down. So I was asked to represent Malaysia in this group called the Joint Investigation Team between Australia, Netherlands, you and us. The job was to find out who actually shot it and to bring the person to justice. Along the way. It was quite clear that the other European country, they just wanted to go after Russia, Russia, Mr. Putin in particular, which is tall order. I mean, you can't go after the head of a state as a as a person in charge, I mean, responsible, right? I mean, it has to be someone on the ground who gave the orders to shoot. Yeah. So but then they wouldn't listen to us because we argue we are not interested in going after the head of the Russian government. We are only interested in getting to know who is the person who actually gave the orders to shoot. But eventually, before that thing was ended, and if a man decided that I should go to Singapore as High Commissioner, and it was at the height of a very difficult time, one MDB process was etcetera going on. So thankfully I wasn't there for long. Two years came back and then I had a chance to see Doctor Marty. Doctor Marty told me, look, and I'm going to send you over to Manpu to head a department called the Public Sector Reform because this is a promise that this government had made. Speaker 2 And this is after 2018. Speaker 1 After 2018, so I ended up in Manpu and I spent the last three years of my career in Manpur, but half the last half year of it was spent at home because COVID had come and we had all got to work from home. So a career that started with France ended up with sitting at home for six months, but also very challenging because the civil service was unsure how to deal with the new players. Speaker 2 Yeah, the new dynamics. Speaker 1 And all that, and you yourself were there. Speaker 2 Yes, I was there. I was in government one minute and then out of government next. But yeah, yeah, so thanks so much for this very rich history, you know, love to, you know, talk to you more about your rich experience in, you know, many of the countries that you serve. But yeah, you know, since we're here to talk about ASEAN, we'll come back to ASEAN, but we'll take a short break now. And then we'll come back and then talk about, you know, your own entry into the podcast universe with Diplomatify. “Diplomatify” podcast And then we'll, you know, take it on from there. Be right back. Welcome back to Part 2 of this Are We OK? Podcast, the first podcast for this new year with our special guest, Doctor, Doctor Ilango Karupanan, who was the former Malaysian High Commissioner to Singapore and also ambassador to many other countries. A long time in the diplomatic service. A total of how many years? Speaker 1 33 years. Speaker 2 33 years before retiring, you retired officially from the civil service in 2020. So after that, one of the things that that allowed us to connect was the fact that post retirement you, like me, decided to join the podcast ecosystem, right? So you have your own podcast called Diplomatify. Purpose of starting the podcast Can you maybe just tell us a little bit about what made you want to do a podcast? Speaker 1 I must say that I actually was Peter again, you a role model. I said, you know, you guys are doing a great job. You know, I think they're educating people on things that are important to the ordinary person. So I thought there is there are people who will be interested in some of those international developments. So I thought, you know, rather than they're getting the news from the rumor market, coffee shop and you know, all kinds of rumor speculation, I thought maybe somebody should bring it down to a level that people can actually understand. Yes. So diplomatify basically is analyzing or explaining about certain international developments in a way that is easy for people to understand. So I started by talking about things that I know about. They're all about topics that I am actually very, very familiar. I don't talk about things that I do not know very much. Like for example, I haven't said anything about Europe, although I can talk about it, but I consider ASEAN, BRICS, these kind of things and Middle East to be much more closer to me. Speaker 2 That you've also talked about issues to do with the South China Sea for. Speaker 1 Example across South China Sea that these are all because I've been involved in the negotiation for many, many years. I can talk about those at. Speaker 2 Land is it easier to get share your wisdom and to sort of like explain these things to the general public as a retired diplomat? Speaker 1 Yeah, you're right. I mean, it's much more easier to do it as a retired person. But of course, I I the you know, I don't say a lot of other things as well that sure you're. Speaker 2 Very measuring carefully. Speaker 1 So we have to be that way. Secondly, because details are not interesting to many people too because they will actually be lost in the country. You want the big picture things going on because at the end of the day, people are generally concerned. Is that going to be a problem for me? Is my life going to have to be adjusted? Do I need to make certain adjustments or maybe sometimes are there opportunities for me? These are sort of things that I try to talk to. Speaker 2 From what I understand, you actually shoot a lot of the videos yourself or? Speaker 1 All of them myself. Speaker 2 OK, OK. And then the editing also. Speaker 1 All myself. Like I say, it's a three man show. It's me, myself and I. Speaker 3 OK, OK. I've seen some of the videos is good. Speaker 2 Quality, OK. Speaker 1 Look like. Speaker 2 When you talk about some of these issues, right, obviously you draw from your rich diplomatic experience. Are there areas where you find it to be a little too sensitive for you to even try to explain? So for example, if let's say, since you were in Singapore, if let's say somebody brings up the issue of water tariff between Malaysia and Singapore, definitely a very sensitive issue. Doctor Mahathir would occasionally still bring it up even now. You know, I think he released a statement on this one or two days ago. You know, would you feel sort of like a little bit held back to delve into some of the details of these topics? Speaker 1 I think some issues, obviously I wouldn't want to say dwell on it for several reasons. One, it is sensitive. There are many details which are actually not pleasing to talk about. We have done it, we have gone through them, but I think it's really not useful or helpful to talk about it now. The other reason is that there are also things that I feel that I'm not fully aware of, some more details at the background, because some of these things actually got a very long roots going behind, like say for example the talk about KTM land. We know the KTM land has been basically resolved, sold and blah blah. Speaker 2 That is the one in Singapore. Speaker 1 Exactly. But the story is actually very deep. It goes very, very far. It touches a lot of places, lots of actors, personalities. Speaker 2 A lot back and forth. Speaker 1 Back and forth which I think and I'm not fully aware of some, many of the details because they go back very, very far behind, right. So I think it's not useful or helpful for me to talk about those kind of things which I do not know. Similarly, we were to talk about one MDB, for example. Again, you know, I was tangentially involved in it, but I do not know a lot of stuff. I'd rather talk about happy things, like, for example, you know, the positive thing that looking forward, say, Johor, Singapore. Speaker 2 Economic zone You. Speaker 1 Have spoken about it. I think those are something much more useful to talk about because I think at the end of the day what is important to keep in mind. I keep this in mind because there are about 340,000 Malaysians depend on in Singapore for the livelihood. They need to go up and down, travel up and down as well. So there is a whole lot of people whose life and ecosystem is connected to good stable relationship between Malaysia and Singapore. So I want to talk about things that actually build that positivity rather than bring negative kind of thoughts etcetera, you know? Speaker 2 But there are challenges in terms of there's, there's positive stuff definitely, but there are also challenges in terms of some policies regarding as the entry of vehicles in and out of Singapore, in and out of Malaysia. And probably one of the things that I've also noticed along the way is as ASEAN and Malaysia as a whole grows richer and more developed, you get a lot more movement of people within the ASEAN region, right? And that also affects the kind of diplomatic relationships that we have with Indonesia, let's say, right? Whether it's people who are coming as people in the construction sector, the maids, professionals. And then now we see a lot more people coming from, let's say, Thailand, Vietnam, even the Philippines, right? Yeah. So those are important issues for us to discuss. Yeah. Well, since we're talking about ASEAN, maybe we can pivot a little bit and talk about ASEAN chairmanship, big picture, which is something that many people may have heard of but don't really know the relevance of, right? People say, OK, yeah, Malaysia's the chair of ASEAN in 20/20/25, which is this year. We were last chairs in 2015. So it's on a rotation basis by alphabetical order. So before us it was Laos, after us it's the Philippines. So maybe you explain to the man on the street or the person on the street. Why should Malaysians care about Malaysia chairing ASEAN? Why should Malaysians care about ASEAN? ASEAN, first of all, is a very important organization because it encompasses 10 countries now in the region. Speaker 2 Maybe going to add one more one more estimo. Speaker 1 Fairly soon, I hope, I hope it's going to happen during Malaysia's chairmanship, the formal admission. So that would make 680 million people living in this place total GDP of 3.7. What do you call? Speaker 2 A trillion U.S. dollars. Speaker 1 U.S. dollars, which I think Doctor Ong knows very well. We are the 3rd, I'm sorry, 4th or 5th largest economic powerhouse today. So why is it important? Because as a chair, we get to put up initiatives which first of all improves or helps the lives of many ordinary people. I grew up at a time, for example, when when you look at the back of the passport, there used to be a long list of countries where you couldn't go. Countries like Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, South China, not Vietnam, China, you know, Albania, all these countries you couldn't visit in Southeast Asia, they already fall. Communist countries, Communist countries. But today you can. I actually did it a couple of two months ago. You can take a flight, go to Saigon, just get out, take a Grab, go to the hotel, do the stuff that finish, Go to Phnom Penh, same thing. Get out of the airport, take the grab again, no money chain, no nothing. And there are lots of people who are buying and selling stuff from different, different parts. I know many Malays buying small, small stuff from Vietnam and selling it for a small profit over here. A lot of golfer, I'm a golfer myself, so golfer shirts, attire come from Vietnam. This, I'm not thinkable those days. You know, lots of small people are benefiting from this ASEAN integration, which today we take it for granted. 20 years ago, this was not possible. 30 years ago, 4050, sixty years ago, it was a totally new universe altogether that we are seeing today. But thanks to countries like Malaysia which have held the chairmanship, not just now, we have done this several times. Each time we have been in the chair, we have advanced new initiatives. I mean all other countries as well. 1992 Singapore's idea was to have this as. Speaker 2 An free. Speaker 1 Trade, which is why today we have. Speaker 2 As an economic. Speaker 1 Community. Community, for example, and then when we were chair in 2005, when I was in the policy planning, we are the one who advanced the idea of the US and Charter, he says. Summit. All these are areas where we can actually extract value. New values can be brought to the public. People can get things done. I mean, they can get to move things together, work together, buy, sell together. You mentioned Singapore, Malaysia. Today it's a role model for ASEAN actually, this connectivity, the people, ease of movement. Today, it's actually a role model for the rest of the ASEAN to follow. Same thing that's happening between Thailand and Malaysia. So slowly, slowly, slowly. And if you look at the summit documents, what is happening over there is that each chairmanship is trying to hack away at a little bit of block that now remains in allowing full mobility. Speaker 3 Of. Speaker 1 Goods, services, capital and people, people. Ultimately, we think that when this happens, it's much more beneficial for everybody now. So taking over the chairmanship is a great thing because we get to drive. It's also a time naturally for every country because you are the one not talking. I mean, we're going to lead it. You might as well see what is it that your own country needs and how can it actually, you know, do better, for example, by integrating further into the ASEAN. So there is a vested interest because there's a national interest as well. But it's because we are empowering the whole region. Speaker 3 If we were to put into your perspective, you were saying that every time we have this ASEAN chairmanship and all these different initiatives are chipping away little blocks from a wall that allow ASEAN to be to gain its fullest potential. Now maybe in your words you can describe to us, right? What do you see if all these blocks are chipped away? What is that ideal ASEAN look like and how does it benefit the people of Malaysia or people who are living in ASEAN? Speaker 1 Simplest level, say for example, people can visit, move around freely without visa. Now itself you can visit without visa for one month. So that is one advantage because first people can move around, they can trade, they can live, work, learn from each other. There's one thing, there's some advantages there. For example #2 on the economic side, even if you when you look at ASEAN, when you started in 1976 when Malaysia was the chair at that time, the early summit, second time we started what is known as AIGV, there's large integrated, big economic projects. The idea was can we all pool resources together and set up mega projects which we can all benefit from. In 1976, agriculture was still a very important part. We needed a lot of potash, a lot of urea and all that kind of stuff. So Malaysia and Indonesia, we set up plants, urea plants. So this about the early parts of the economic integration where we thought we can actually pull together resources. But along the way we realized that it's not very easy because then the issue was who's going to manage, how we are going to move is a problem. Secondly, we have already produced it here. How do we move it across the border? Because you got customs check. Speaker 2 Different tariffs. Speaker 1 Different tariffs. So then we thought, oh look we got to go move further up. We have to go into what is known as preferential trading arrangements BTA next stage. Then we thought, OK, this one means that we for certain lists of products, we chip away the tariffs, right, remove the non tariff barriers and tariffs so that you can move easily at these important things. Then we looked around and say this is not important, not enough yet. Now we got to do more, which is why after I came along chip away even more. They need to see now default basically are going to 0 tariff, maybe with some exclusion lists which are very important for your national security. Then we found there's still not enough. We need to move further up towards Asian Economic Community now. The highest point where you can reach over here is a customs union. Speaker 2 Like the EU for. Speaker 1 Example But we are still too far from being a customs union because the level of development in the region is still very disparate. But customs union means where you have common customs tariff everywhere goods can move freely up and down. For this to happen, the other members must have also moved to a certain level of. Speaker 2 Must equalize their level of development. Speaker 1 So this is where Asian is now at. They're trying to raise the what you call the gap between the developed and the non developed. Speaker 2 The less developed. Speaker 1 So this initiative called the initiative for Azure integration, we're going on for the last 1520 years now. But as you can see, Singapore $58,000, I think GDP, Laos is 1000 something. And imagine the gap is so big you got to do a lot more. Speaker 2 You bring in East Timor, Timor estate then the guy would be even even. Speaker 1 Even more. Plus you've got a landlocked country as well, Laos, who's got another set of special problems as well. So we are actually chipping away at all these things, putting little by little, little by little. But at the end of the day, when I look at it from the 1967 when we started, a lot has happened. People have benefited immensely from this transformation that ASEAN has been doing. But when we look at it from say one year to one year, you probably don't see very much, you know? Speaker 2 Yeah. And if you know, I were to reference prominent diplomat and also author Keshaw Abubani, he has written a book about ASEAN to talk about how ASEAN is the success story that nobody talks about because we actually don't shout it out enough. We don't showcase some of the achievements within ASEAN enough. And if you think about some of the achievements we've had, you know, we've managed to bring some countries out of conflict, you know, in our own ASEAN way, bring them to a path of greater normalization. You know, I think that's what we're trying to do with EST more, but of course there are other challenges within ASEAN, namely Myanmar, which we'll talk about later as well. One of the issues that that Prime Minister Anoi Prime has highlighted that he wants to look at and focus on maybe just to also complete the picture a little bit more. I think what people don't realize is that because of AFTA, because of the Asian ASEAN Economic Community that built the framework with regards to the Ftas that we've had, the free trade agreements that ASEAN has had with Australia, New Zealand, with Korea, with China, with Japan. And some of these coming together into fruition to build or to conclude the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership or our SET, which has been, you know, ongoing and also has been entered into force, I think for about two or three years already. So these kind of things actually take a long time before things really, you know, get going. And then people see the benefit of this kind of integrated trade and supply chain, which may end up being very important as more and more companies come to ASEAN to take advantage of the regional supply chain because of tariffs against China and all that kind of stuff. Speaker 3 Like I was thinking about also part of the follow up question to what you said just now and also to what I asked, right, Is that do you think in the near future we'll be able to see that there's going to be a more convenient talent migration? Because one of the things that that we have been noticing over the past many years, every time we talk about talent migration, people coming into Malaysia from ASEAN region, generally we are talking about low skill jobs. Convenient talent migration But if you look at a country like European Union, right, the opportunity widens because I, I can be a graduate from say, a smaller country and I go to Germany and work or. Speaker 2 Go to London. Speaker 3 Yeah, or go to London and work. Speaker 2 When the UK was still in the. Speaker 3 EU, that's right. So and in Malaysia case recently I'm also starting to see a little bit more like we see Indonesian graduates or working in the local Malaysian company or Vietnam, you know and everywhere else and same thing for Malaysian businesses. There are many Malaysian businesses who are looking out and they are saying, hey, there are quite a lot of opportunities in Laos, you know, everywhere else but to go. Yeah. But to go about with it, it's more complicated. Unlike in European Union where you just upgrade yourself, just move there, you can figure out your way as you go along. But here you don't get the privilege still. Yeah. So do you think there will ever be such a day to happen for us? Speaker 1 Yeah. In fact, I think the building blocks have already been put in place. But I think this is actually is a very important thing that you have just raised. I think more has to be put in place before you actually can have structured way of attracting talent into the into this region. There is this ASEAN University's network. That's one level of discussion. Where I remember this is about 1516 years ago, there was discussion about trying to not harmonize, but trying to see how the curriculums are sort of set up so that they basically don't compete with each other or complement each other in terms of training people and getting. What do you call? Speaker 2 And you probably could have, you know, greater student exchange and student mobility. Speaker 1 As well, and what we lack is that we lack the European institution like response for example, which they actually support scholarship mobility across. Speaker 2 Countries. Countries, yes. Speaker 1 We don't do it because the issue of employment is still a very touchy thing. There's a lot of unemployment in countries like. Speaker 2 Indonesia, for example. Speaker 1 Yeah. So everybody is still grappling with their domestic issues because these are all very touchy thing for the leadership at home. But I think it is something that we should not ignore and I think I hope is going being thought about because you see if countries like Malaysia, we are trying to position ourselves as this the secondary of the chip making kind of thing. These are all high level, high skill high. Speaker 2 Skill high technology kind of industries. Speaker 1 Yes. So we need to be living in an ecosystem where actually attracts people to come in, live, learn, study, use, apply, etcetera, right. So I think it's not fully there yet, but some thinking has gone on. But this is what the chairmanship you should look at. Speaker 2 Yeah. So a few a few responses to that. I think if let's say the your whole Singapore special Economic Zone can show some modalities in terms of making it easier for people to move from Joe to Singapore and vice versa, including having, you know, more interesting job structures or frameworks where you can get employed in Singapore but live in Malaysia. If let's say this kind of model can work, then maybe we can have other mini mini models between the same Malaysia and. And Thailand or even Philippines and Indonesia, you know, there are these growth triangles that have been, you know, used as models before, but maybe the success factor hasn't been that high. Like, so the GSSZ would be 1. The other one would be maybe to try to pull together the different initiatives that has to do with these digital nomads, right? It's very popular after COVID. Thailand has their own program. Malaysia under MDEC has the Derantal program, Singapore and Bali also as one. So is it possible for us to tie these programs up and to try to experiment, experiment with them? And then the third area I want to bring up is the role of the private sector within the ASEAN chairmanship, which is something that has gone parallel to the former government kind of a pathways and also tracks. This is things like that's under, for example, the ASEAN Business Advisory Council, ASEAN back, you know, that's the private sector that complements what the government is doing. And this year as as Malaysia's chairing ASEAN, ASEAN Bank, the chairmanship is also held by Malaysian Tanzuri Nazir Azad, who's also doing different things together with different companies to push forward some of the agendas we talked about now, including mobility of people, of students, of workers and things like. Speaker 3 That, yeah, I think if that can be a success, then it's probably a very good opportunity to make Malaysia into a hub for certain industries, especially like semiconductor area when it comes to data analytics and stuff like that because of the data center, right? Yeah, that could make Malaysia position ourselves for greater success for the next 10 years. Speaker 1 And even in services, for example, you see when we are talking about one thing that I noticed is lacking because I was asked to come and give a talk to an insurance company ensuring certain levels of certain activities. Activities is missing on a regional level. Most of them are national level for let's say for example, cyber security is a major threat. The region loses about $300 billion. Speaker 2 To hacking and. Speaker 1 There are no issue of products that looks at it holistically. Malaysia could take the lead, for example. I mean, if you are if you are an industry industry man, you might want to think about can we roll out regional products that supports facilitate helps more industries to. Speaker 2 Yeah, usually the Singaporeans would be a hit, you know, in terms of these kinds of services. But you know, as chair, maybe it's something that we can look into at a more deeper level could be. And, and since you brought up the, the, you know, Cyber security 1 issue that ASEAN has been pushing forward quite a bit is the Digital Economic Framework agreement that far? It started, if I'm not mistaken, sometime in 20/23/2022 or 23. Digital economic framework And then it's going to supposed to be concluding in 2025, right? So one of the things that you mentioned just now is, you know, advancing the notion of E payments and E wallets around the region, right? So that companies like Grab and others can, you know, facilitate better, you know, cross country e-commerce activities, right? So you know, any thoughts on on something like that since since you, you brought up the digital economy issues? Speaker 1 Yes, I mean because one of the things that the countries in the region want to do is that they want to reduce the dependency on what it called currency fluctuation due to the exchange of a dollar etcetera. So one of the decision is to use a common currencies, right. So this things I suppose is part of it can be what we call further intensified. I don't know whether it is taking place at all levels. I don't know really on the granular level, I'm not sure how it actually is taking place. But I think it is something that has to be looked into and further promoted. See, one of the things that I am always concerned about when I talk about ASEAN, it is so elitist that only people like you, I and a few other people can actually fully understand. Even us, we don't even fully understand ourselves because so many things going on. ASEAN has about 1000 meetings in a year, 1000 different types of nomads are meeting all the time, you know, so everybody got their own thing going on. So we do not know fully all the things, but neither does the government actually explain it to the people too properly. So the the ordinary man is actually completely like the Singaporean who say blur all the time. About what? Yeah, you. Speaker 3 Know that's true that's. Speaker 1 True. So only when you mention some sexy things like, oh, we can use common currency, no need to change into, you know, that becomes exciting for people. Oh, maybe. Speaker 2 Common payment system. Speaker 1 Payment system, sorry, you know maybe that is the kind of thing that we can look about. But yeah, the digital economy framework I think is 2025 then supposed to now be looking to revising it further is 1 area. But then there are other things that I, I think that are also looking at. For example, you know, the plenty of things going on even in the ASEAN alone, ASEAN area alone. You know, there is this thing called this. You know, the customs are also trying to sort of regularize their own, what they call. Speaker 2 Platforms, you know E invoicing things like that, but I. Speaker 1 Think there's something they call ASEAN Customs Transfer System? Speaker 2 Yeah. So I think that the idea behind that is actually to make it easier for you know, you know, shipment of goods across so that you can digitalize or electronic make make it easier for in electronic forms. Speaker 1 So the plenty of stuff going on, so I think you know. Speaker 2 Yeah, We talk about, for example, the possibility of ASEAN grid, for example, some people have talked about it. We are already exporting energy to Singapore. You know, there's Singapore has had intentions of wanting to buy 100 megawatts of power from Laos, right? So they need to get Thailand agreement also for for that. We talk about the possibility of linking up, you know, Malaysia all the way to China using real system. Yep, right. You know, so all these are possibilities in terms of enhancing the ASEAN infrastructure, both physical as well as digital, you know, infrastructure and ecosystem. Maybe we take a break now and then we come back and talk about some of the nuts and bolts with regards to Malaysia's own positioning strategy and also the themes of inclusivity and sustainability, you know, in the final segment. So be right back after this. Welcome back to the Are We OK podcast together with Datto Doctor Ilango Karupanan who is sharing his thoughts with us about ASEAN, specifically Malaysia's chairmanship of ASEAN this year. Doctor Lango, I wanted to sort of like zoom in, try to explain to the general public here the difference between the so-called political tracks of ASEAN and also the economic track. Difference between the “political track” and “economic track” And I think what from my understanding, you know, the economic track is mostly handled by MITI, right? They have an ASEAN division. There's certain things that have to do with, for example, the Digital Economic Framework agreement, the ASEAN Economic Ministers meeting and all this is actually handled by by MITI. And then there's also the other track which is handled by WISMA, you know, to do with the more political stuff, maybe things to do with the code of conduct with regards to South China Sea, even discussions on the extent to which we have not moved forward on the five point consensus with regards to Myanmar. Can you explain to to us the difference between these two tracks and specifically focus more on the political track and and discuss what Malaysia can or hope to achieve in that track? Speaker 1 The ASEAN community has got three community. It's made-up of three communities. So it's not just two, actually three. One is the ASEAN political security community. These are all the political and all these issues that Doctor Hong Pan changes now and it's held or led by Visma, Patra and a few other ministries, for example, which are related to it, like Defense. Been there. They're all part of the whole ecosystem. Then there is this as an Economic Community type of issues. MITI takes the lead, but there are also other ministries which are also a light to the whole thing. MOF, Finance, Finance, they're also part of the whole thing. They also play a role. Then there is this ASEAN social cultural community. Speaker 2 Yeah, the people to people. Speaker 1 People to people, you know, the connectivity, the women, folks, entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship, all these things are this one. There is no one ministry that takes the lead. Many ministries are involved in this whole thing. Speaker 2 But I think for this year, from what I understand, the Ministry of Tourism seems to be taking the lead on that particular aspect. Yeah, I've been told yes. Speaker 1 OK. I mean it well and fine because it's good for somebody to do that role, but I'm not sure whether that's the best choice. But the minister is a very active man, so maybe that's the reason. Speaker 2 Why yes, it's active is yeah, the right word, but probably other words can be used to describe. Speaker 1 Him So in terms of the you wanted me to talk about the political right. Yeah. So the ASEAN political security community basically looks at things like, for example, how to keep the region stable. Because one of the biggest problem that ASEAN has right from the beginning, even until today, it's about preventing the external powers from competing or bringing their competition into this part of the world. Southeast Asia has always been a very attractive place for major power competition. Speaker 2 The meetings of the the different powers contestation. Speaker 1 Contestation for one, because the geography is very important. The South China Sea states of luck, so shipping, shipping 90,000 ships every year with so much money going through so much things happening is happening. This is a real happening place. We want to put it simply, you know, so everybody wants to have a say in how the things happen. Americans want to have it. Russians want to say that. China, of course, is a big player. Currently the contestation between China and America. But we in the Southeast Asian region, we don't want this contestation because we are friends to both. We need them both for many reasons, right? So we don't want an ugly competition taking place here where eventually we will be forced to take sides because we know for a fact that the ten of us are not on the same page. Some are. Speaker 2 Closer to 1 compared to some are. Speaker 1 Closer to 1 and some other closer to the other. Because we all have different perspective, right? Speaker 2 Different interests. Speaker 1 Interests as well and our concerns are also somewhat different as well. So naturally that means that we will take certain positions which are not what he call it could be conflicting with other other member countries. But we don't want this to happen. So the main thing that the political group of people try to do is that we want to prevent this competition from taking place. So we are insisting all the time that this thing called zone of peace, freedom, neutrality must be respected by everyone. So fun mean to say that leave your fighting here. Don't come and catch out us here. Let us be the ones who will decide on how things are going to be run in this part of the world. If South China Sea is a problem, yes, definitely it's a problem, but it should be resolved by us. Don't come in inside and tell us how to do it, because that's not a helpful way to do it. Speaker 2 So related to this concept, Dorothy Lango, would be the concept of ASEAN centrality. People have talked a lot about it. Do you want to explain a little bit more? Speaker 1 About that ASEAN centrality, simply say that ASEAN wants to be the center of how things are done. For example, in the previous time, we used to call it ASEAN, the driver's seat. Apart from Zofan, we have something called the Treaty of MET and Cooperation and we also have the Southeast Asian Nuclear Weapon Free Trade Zone and we have a few other subsidiary kind of agreements which actually regulates how countries should behave with one another. We have for example with with China, we know that we have certain agreement that they will not do certain thing, we will not do certain thing. We have to abide by certain kind of norms. Same thing that we have with other powers as well. So when a sense says it wants to be, a sense says, talks about centrality, it says that it positions itself right in the middle here. Everything must happen with ASEAN's consent. ASEAN must be the one having the say. ASEAN is the one that actually, actually, at the end of the day, the final arbiter of how things should happen. But you know, ASEAN is a set of countries which don't have huge military powers, right? So we can insist on being a central to this structure or architecture, but what is more important is that the other major powers actually respect us. They by and like. They respect ASEAN, what they call stance simply because ASEAN has proven itself that it is capable. This is what Kishore Mahabubani has been saying for 60 years. We have kept this region peace. Peaceful absence of war is not because it didn't happen, it happened. It did not happen because we actually. Speaker 2 Struck it away to a. Speaker 1 Proactive stance. So the mem the rest of the world, they actually can see, you know, when you monetize the peace that we have brought is immense. You know, look at the amount of destruction that's taken place in, say, Ukraine, the Middle East. Trillions and trillions of dollars have gone through war, which could have been also the case if something happened here. But nobody says that about Haceana, right? Because they say you know you got it peaceful because you are peaceful. Speaker 3 No, it's not true. Speaker 1 We work very hard at it. So I think America, China, the wrestler, major powers, they respect this. That's the reason why when ASEAN says that ASEAN center is important, they take a step back and listen. But of course, it's getting much more difficult today because situation is keep on, you know, it's changing. Speaker 2 Becoming more complex the. Speaker 1 More complex the. Speaker 2 Struggles are becoming. Speaker 1 Struggles are becoming more difficult. America is more anxious because China is creeping up very, very close to them, so they want to find different places where they can actually compete. Speaker 2 So they will use things like, for example, the court and then China would rely on sometimes breaks and also all these different kinds of, you know, geopolitical contestation. But since you talk about the issue of peace in in ASEAN, you know, can I draw your attention to the situation in Myanmar, right, Because that's that's the tone in ASEAN side. Now. It was a challenge to accept Myanmar to come in in the beginning as ASEAN member, but I think it had to be done. And then of course, when there was a democratic transition with Aung San SU Chi being freed and there being elections, you have a new government. Things seem to be on the up and up. Investments even were going into Myanmar. But then with the military coup, things have become much worse from ASEAN meeting standpoint, including Malaysia's chairmanship. How does this Myanmar issue figure in the larger scheme of things? Speaker 1 First of all, because the Myanmar situation never been settled. You know, it's always been a turbulent place right from the beginning. Malaysia has a very special role here because we are responsible for bringing in Myanmar. This is the reason why when people actually very excited when Malaysia taking over the championship because it's because of you, they are inside now you got to sort it out. It's sort of like the problem is ours to sort of, you know, play the role there. I don't agree with that, but that's how it is seen out there line. The fact that the Myanmar is still unsettled means that we cannot fully realize many of those things that we want to do in ASEAN. Myanmar is not just a problem for itself, it also is a problem for others as well. One the turbulence in the country create creates very fertile ground for plenty of transnational crime to take place, right? Speaker 2 Border with China, Border China, border Thailand. Speaker 1 Exactly. Plenty of nefarious activities are going on. There's gun running. Speaker 2 Trafficking. Speaker 1 Trafficking, women, people, all kinds of things are going on there, you know, and this puts ASEAN in a very difficult spot because it is coming through here and it will have to find its way out through ASEAN channels. To get out from Myanmar, it has to go through some of the ASEAN countries, right? Speaker 2 Yeah. What is a physical or even a financial? Speaker 1 Financial so it also means that you know when there will be people with nefarious ideas in our own countries as well members you know who will facilitate all these things were happening. So it's a problem. So ASEAN cannot fully stand hit and shoulders high with others when you have this problem which is still unresolved. So it is our responsibility to solve it. And ASEAN has said it to the rest of the world. Look, this problem is our problem to you. It's not for others to come in and solve. But the problem is actually a very large problem because it requires a cooperation of the junta over there. And that is, I think the situation where ASEAN is finding itself because ICN is bound by certain rules which you know, like, for example. Speaker 2 Non interference, non. Speaker 1 Interference, you know, these are very important. It's not everybodys academics sometimes say that we should get rid of this so that you can actually deal with them easily, but. Speaker 2 Actually, it's not easy. Not easy. Speaker 1 Because we also don't want this problem, because we don't want others to interfere in our affairs as well for many reasons. So it is actually a thing that actually helps us to keep us together. We are not fighting with each other because of non interference. We are not fighting with each other because of these norms of what do you call observing norms. So we want Myanmar to understand this and regulate itself. But the problem is the self regulation is not really working so long. Speaker 2 Yeah, it doesn't seem to be working. And you know, how realistic is it for Malaysia as chair of ASEAN this year to be able to try to, I'm not saying solve the problem, but be able to push the agenda forward in terms of at least getting some of the the stakeholders to the bargaining or to the discussion table, have some track to diplomacy kind of activities. What? What is your? Speaker 1 View. I think the basic problem with Myanmar is that the way we approach it, it is chairmanship centric approach. This is very weak and approach. I mean I hope I can say this, but if he was sitting in Yangon or Napitao for example, you know that OK, this talk is going to last one year only after that one year, somebody else will take over the show and then you can still play them off again and again and again and you can continue this because you know that there is no long term consistency for ASEAN to attach. I mean attack this problem. So I've been saying that it should not be an ASEAN chairmanship centric approach. We should have a new setup altogether somewhat different, which actually looks at Myanmar problem time frames. It doesn't have to be related to Malaysia alone or Philippines or Thailand. It also relieves the chairmanship from this pressure as well. Speaker 2 So almost as if you need to have some sort of a special representative and some sort of a more permanent office to manage those problems. Speaker 1 So it's not like a malicious special representative on Myanmar whose job will end after one year and they can play you off. They've done that with Indonesia as well, right? But if that came in ASEAN special representative for Myanmar, who is something like analogous to the kind of special representative that the US SEC Gen. has who remains in power place for five years, may be renewed for another five years or whatever. It is someone who has got the confidence of all the member states, also the confidence of the junta who can actually go and talk across periods of time. So this is what I have articulated, I've said in my podcast and whenever I'm asked to come and talk in groups of meetings, but I don't know whether anything. Speaker 2 Has So let me throw this at you, Doctor Lango. You know, since our Prime Minister, Anoi Ibrahim has appointed former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin as his special adviser, do you think that he would be able to play this role in terms of trying to engage with Myanmar? Malaysia appoints Thailand's former premier Thaksin as adviser Do you think he's seen as an honest broker in in this this scheme of things? Speaker 1 I think that to see Anwar, his instinct is right in one sense, because Thailand is the key to the problem. Speaker 2 OK, yes. Speaker 1 We need Thailand's help to sort this thing out. Speaker 2 You want to explain a little bit more about why that's the case? Speaker 1 Because the the junta generals and Thai generals, they have got very strong connection. They communicate with each other. There's a lot of goings and froing between them and the times are actually much more of what we call because of the religious factor and all this kind of stuff. Speaker 2 And also geography. Speaker 1 Geography as well, they are a much more trusted interlocutor for the Myanmar site. So we need to work with the times to sort of facilitate some of these goings on. There's a lot of businesses which are also established and run by, you know, people from Myanmar with the tacit support of Thailand, etcetera. I mean, I don't want to go into many details and stuff, but they play a role. They we need to have them. We are too far away from the locus of the problem. Speaker 2 Right, And in that context, would Taksin be a suitable person? Speaker 1 This is where the issue is. I I am, I'm not so sure myself because I know Takshin, of course, is an influential person, but I'm not sure whether he's, I'm not sure whether this idea of a special advisor in this form is a useful thing to do. I mentioned this now the person should be someone who's acceptable to all the member countries and also acceptable to Myanmar. Takshin obviously is acceptable to Myanmar. I think so, but is it fully acceptable to all the member countries? There's a question mark here. Is it fully acceptable to his own government as well? Correct. There's also a bigger problem there. So the issue is where and how credible his words are, his actions are going. Speaker 2 To be and also the issue that you brought up just now, continuity, right. If he's going to be just Anwar's advisor for one year, then again the back to the same. They're going to say that, look, you know, whatever you say, you can only say it for one year and there's no guarantee that the next chair of ASEAN will come in and give you this this role again. Speaker 1 Exactly. Yeah. So it would have been a much better exercise, in my opinion, humbly speaking, to establish an ASEAN special representative. And then if Takshin can be appointed to that position, that'll be well and fine because understood that everybody's agreed that we want to create this post and that everybody's agreed that we are going to appoint this particular person into that. Speaker 2 Post and and his job specs or job school be much more well defined compared to what it is now. Speaker 1 Exactly, and we will be relieved of the pressure of dealing with it. Speaker 3 Yeah. Speaker 1 Because now he's going to report in a summit to all the summit leaders what he has been doing, how things have been going on. Because he will have to also link with the UN special envoy. What extending the Taksin have with that person? Speaker 2 Because his position is not official. Speaker 1 Not official. So it's a very murky situation. But I mean, I, I, as I said, there are many things. I do not know the background, so I cannot really comment on some of these things. But there could be other things. I mean, there could be friendship, for example, because it's a old friendships, you know. Taksin was very kind to the Toshi Anwar. Speaker 2 When he was. Speaker 1 He was in difficult times, so I think it's also natural for a human being to reach out to another old friend as well. So maybe that's happening, I'm not sure. Speaker 2 Yeah, we'll, we'll come back to that when we talk about Prime Minister Anwar's foreign policy direction, you know, in in different areas, even outside ASEAN. But yeah, I mean, it seems to me that you you have some, some some concerns on the Myanmar part. What then do you think you know of the role that, for example, the EU or the Americans can play in in this context? Or are they probably at a point in time whereby they're too distracted EU with with what's happening in in Ukraine and then the US with their own domestic policy issues to really have anything meaningful to to say or do in Myanmar? Speaker 1 Yeah, I think you're right, partly because the US and UUKI mean Europe are both both fully occupied with their own domestic issues or neighbourhood issues. I think both of them are actually not. They don't see Myanmar as a major priority for that because as far as Asians in the show, they'll know that this thing can, will not blow up. It will remain bubbling there. It will continue for years. Speaker 2 It won't be like the Middle East. Speaker 1 Won't be the Middle East. So it's a problem that we can completely ignore. Let them handle it slowly on their own. Can stop, but it's not good for us. Asian has got his own agenda. It wants to move forward. It doesn't want to be stuck with this issue here, right? So this is where a problem situation, I mean, it's happening for us, The role that America and the rest of them can play, yes, because as I said, ASEAN say, the Myanmar issue, it's not an issue that can be resolved entirely only by ASEAN. ASEAN, yes, because it has to involve players like China, It also has to involve other countries outside of region as well. You have to bring them all together before we can actually resolve the problem of Myanmar. Because Myanmar problem has got several dimensions, right. There's a refugee dimension as I mentioned to you earlier, the trans National Crime dimensions. There is a political dimension as. Speaker 2 Well, political legitimacy. Speaker 1 Legitimacy, the structure of the country, these are all things that requires support and help from other kinds of people. Speaker 2 The NUG government. Speaker 1 For example, and then the Huntas lifeline is who are the lifeline for this Hunta and all that kind. All these players all have to. Speaker 2 Be and you also have those separatist groups, you know the Karens, the Shans who are having their own militia and. Speaker 1 Government, so currently we don't talk to any of them. We only deal with the Hunta because our SOP is we deal with the people who are. Speaker 2 In government. Government. Formal government. Speaker 1 Formal government or formal government, right. But the problem is that there's so many other players who are actually running their own governments inside Myanmar, and we don't talk to them. You can't resolve this thing. Sure, Yeah. Speaker 2 So yeah, very complicated issue, one thing to also tap your brain on another complicated and sensitive issue. The whole idea of the discussion that we are having ASEAN is having with China vis a vis the code of conduct, right? So, you know, just for reference for readers, I think one approach that China has been taken with regards to South China Sea negotiations is that they want to do it on a bilateral basis, right? China talk to Vietnam, China talk to Philippines, China talk to us. But ASEAN's position has been, you know, different in the sense that we want to negotiate, you know, as a whole, right? And I think having that strength in numbers vis a vis a divide and conquer kind of policy that China may may be using, you know, that is seen as something that's advantageous to ASEAN. So any thoughts on this? Speaker 1 You're right, totally right. Chinas position has always been that it is a bilateral problem, it should be resolved bilaterally. But in 1992, that's when we actually broached this thing. We finally asked and said, look, we have to have something collective because you cannot, you cannot at all resolve it bilaterally because there are some claims. For example, I mean you mentioned 4, right? There are only four countries which are claimants which is Malaysia, Philippines, Vietnam and Brunei. Speaker 2 Yeah. Speaker 1 Not Indonesia, because Indonesia is an Atuna Sea, it is somewhere else and not Taiwan because Taiwan is actually, as far as you're concerned, it's China, it's part of China, right? So these are only the four countries. Now there are some places where it overlaps between Malaysia and China and sometimes and Vietnam. Speaker 2 Yeah, and sometimes Malaysia, Philippines and China. Speaker 1 Exactly. So you have places where the three countries overlapping, some places, two countries overlapping one place, four countries overlapping, all these things. So you cannot resolve this bilaterally. You have to talk with, that's right, more than one person, one country to do it, which is why China basically agreed. But the problem is that I don't think they are fully committed to the whole thing because they also know that ASEAN is not getting his act together. See, when we started the whole thing, we said that the four claimant countries will have to get their act together first. Speaker 2 In terms of knowing what our negotiating position is. Speaker 1 So the process always was the three-step or two step process. Claimants will meet, first four hours will meet and then we'll bring in the six other ASEAN member countries. We'll tell them, look, this is what we agreed. So you all have to say the same thing. This is a script that you are going to talk right this. Now I become an ASEAN thing, then we bring in China. So when ASEAN China talks about talks, it is actually the claim and state which should also sorted out the position which is now taken over by ASEAN because sometimes chair is not the claimant state. Indonesia, for example, chairing time, they have to take what we have said. They cannot go and put their own story and pictures and all thing. You know, you have to follow what that's how it. But the problem is that between the four claimant states, somewhere along the way, I think trust and confidence sort of started to erode. They stopped doing this thing on their own. Philippines felt that we were not fully on the same page as they were because, you know, every country had their own particular perspective. Speaker 2 Right. And we are maybe not supporting Philippines in some of their sort of like clashes. Speaker 1 And yeah, because for example, when we say that we're going to talk with China, the first position that all of us took was that nobody will use aggressive measures, no using of any grace, great tactics or great tactics mean that instead of using military vessels, you use Coast Guard, you use big fishing vessels, you know, to go there and threaten, you know, water cannon, water cannon. These are all they call great tactics, not military. I mean, So because under military means on cross, your kick in is the declared declaration of war, all kinds of things will follow. So we say no, none of this should take place. But Philippines has a different perspective because you must remember Philippines a lot of people depend on fishing for livelihood more than us. Philip, Vietnam also, but I think a lot in Philippines. So a lot of them are threatened by this thing because a lot of the Shoals are where they actually take the livelihood. Many of them diving there looking for Pearl, all the kind of stuff. So small, small peoples livelihood is all messed up because of this. So Philippines has got a lot of pressure, domestic political pressing matter for them. So its more pressing in Philippine then say for example US because for us is the respective oil, you know the what they call Laconia Shoals. But these people I have got problem with the Scarborough show, first Thomas show, second Thomas show and all that kind of. But Vietnam on the other hand, has also problem with China. But Vietnam has got a different experience with China. Speaker 2 Yeah, because of the wars. Speaker 1 They fought wars before, they're actually tough people as well, so they have a different language. So Philippines sees itself as a vulnerable partner and it needs support of others. But I think they probably felt that we were not fully supportive of them. That's the reason why they went on their own doing what they've done. They've taken up to the Court of International Court of Arbitration in 2016 to actually formally declare that this nine dash line is illegal, which naturally happened. Now that has made China annoyed. But China idea was that don't go doing this kind of stuff. Yeah. So now we have actually, in a way, a little bit messed up already, you know? Speaker 2 So actually the whole process is probably quite tough to see a way forward that that can. Speaker 1 Tough it requires because Malaysia too, I think we have, I think we have lost a little bit of credibility as well because when we were supposed to play a better role, I think we abdicated the role. Speaker 2 OK, you're going to explain a little bit. Speaker 1 Later, because you see, I think for example, when we're talking about threat between China and Philippines, I think Malaysia must also take the side of Philippines. Speaker 2 Within the spirit of. Speaker 1 Spirit of ASEAN, we cannot just simply say no, no, no, we are not going to talk about this because suddenly then the question is where is this ASEAN? Speaker 3 You're supposed to back me up. Where do you go? Speaker 1 Exactly so so we, I think we must have, we should have found a language where we should have prioritized ASEAN's unity first. At the same time, not saying that we are looking at China as an as an enemy, but China is important to us. So I don't think we actually, I could be wrong. I hope. I know I'm not going to be flamed for this later on, but I think we probably should. Speaker 2 One way in which the, I think some people in the in the Philippines ecosystem may have responded is by leaking this so-called letter from China written in Mandarin that was sent to our embassy in Beijing to say that you know, they, you know, they are, you know, they are protesting against some of the Malaysian activities on some of the shows that we are claiming. Speaker 1 Right. So they're saying basically now you thought you're safe, now you so. Speaker 2 Yes, correct. Right. That's the Philippines way of saying that, you know, you should have been on this boat together with us. Yeah, right. OK. Any other questions to do with ASEAN that you want to? Speaker 3 Ask no ASEAN, many of the countries has also decided to partner or other application to board bricks right. And China is a big player here in the sense and with Trump being more isolationist policy guy and you know, with this whole US, China trade war thing. How do you think Trump's administration will respond to ASEAN in the in his term of being a president? Will it will we be will there be a chance of us being together slapped with a bunch of tariffs? Will he take aggressive stands and, and at this point, our Prime Minister definitely seemed to be a bit more in favour of being much more independent, while at the same time showing signs of closeness towards both Russia and China more freely, right? How do you think we should navigate these waters and how would this affect us? Speaker 1 I think it's very important question you have raised. You know, I think in this particular sense, I think we should take India as a role model. India is also a member in bricks as well. What we should completely avoid, and I think this is what Trump has a problem with, Trump has a problem if BRICS wants to go active D dollar into active D dollarization, currently what's happening is that the dollarization taking place irrespective. Speaker 2 Is doing is doing it very quietly. Speaker 1 Quietly it's happening naturally. Country deciding to buy and sell on their own currency is actually a form of D dollarization, but it's not active thing. But BRICS has not officially moved in that direction of actively trying to promote a non use of dollar. As long as we are in that direction, I think we are on the safer ground. China too has said and Russia too has said that U.S. dollar is very important. The trade using U.S. dollar has to be also protected. They don't want to come to a situation where they want to completely. Speaker 2 I think that's more true of China. I think because of the war in Ukraine for Russia, they've been left with not that much choice, so they are looking for alternatives and that's why a lot of their trade has been shifted to to China and to a lesser extent India. Speaker 1 India, correct. But I think for what Malaysia should be careful and I think we should advocate as the BRICS members to also think along the same line is that we should stay away from the discussion about de dollarization. The discussion should be about promoting intra BRICS trade, intra BRICS commerce, intra BRICS cooperation, that kind of thing. I mean, if D dorization happens as a result of this, as natural consequence, well then it's a different ball game that we are going to have to play with America. But if we come out there saying that we are getting together just so that we can get rid of the dollar, then it becomes an issue and you probably have issues of tariff coming along. So I think our pronouncements when we talk about bricks is important for the PM and the minister to be careful that we emphasize the Economic Cooperation and the collaboration that getting more value out of this. Speaker 2 I think that's what Mitti has been trying to do. But I think what causes me some concern and worry is the fact that sometimes Prime Minister Anwar would say things like, oh, I want to establish some sort of a Asian Monetary Fund. And the idea behind that is so that we can trade more in our currencies with the implicit idea of wanting to de dollarize. To me, like what you said, I think if it happens naturally and with some kind of government support, but doing it quietly, I don't think that's a problem. But when, when Trump is there, when you want to do these things in a more explicit way, you're sending this kind of, you know, warning signals that you are, you may be putting yourself in the line of fire. Speaker 1 Correct, correct. Yeah. I think the trick is the script must be written read a few times, maybe a few and then before. Speaker 3 That's the challenge, yeah. So. So. Speaker 2 Maybe on on on this front since we've gone into breaks, you know, and that's a move away from ISEAN a bit, you know, like to ask your opinion in terms of, you know, Prime Minister Anwar's own larger foreign policy strategy. PMX forum policy strategy And I think in a way, he is undertaking foreign policy in a way that's, I think much more aggressive than even Doctor Mahathi in in Mahathi's second term as Prime Minister, because he had a lot more internal issues, you know, that he had to manage this. Doctor Mahathi right now, Anwar, he's travelled to so many different countries wanting to project himself, you know, in a much more, you know, you know, proactive manner and also making certain policy announcements along the way, like wanting to join Bricks, applying to join bricks, being seen to be a little bit maybe closer to China. You have this award of the 2nd 5G network and things of that nature. How do you see Anwar's sort of like a balancing act in is a foreign policy strategy? Speaker 1 Yeah, I know that you have written a very interesting article, The Unbalancing Unbalanced Balancing. Speaker 2 Yeah, unbalanced balancing and yeah. Speaker 1 Which I think in some fashion explains the dilemma faced here. No, I think that was the one situation is I look at him as almost like a second Doctor Marty in a way. I think he served so long under him. I think some of it must have rubbed on to him as well. So there's a lot of personalization of foreign policy that is being pursued by Anwar. Dr. Marty also did the same thing. You know, he took a personal interest in many of those decisions that we do, which is sometimes not the best of thing for a country because, you know, when decisions are made without really fully getting all the feedback from everywhere around there, it could be a sort of an issue. Speaker 2 Yeah. So one example would be, you know, he got close to quite a lot of the presidents in Africa, for example. Robert Mugabe would be an example. And then, you know, maybe made gave certain favours to some of these leaders without thinking about what is the larger country to country or institutional benefits that we could have by by. You know, getting close to these countries. Speaker 1 Yeah, but Doctor Matthew's biggest issue was a member, he pronounced this is economic grouping. EEG was a bombshell, you know, and he said it in the official dinner hosted for the Chinese premier at the time, Lippung. He came here. He announced it. Vishwant Putra was flabbergasted. Nobody had heard about this. And then now you're scrambling. And when he said that the Americans went really ballistic, ballistic, you know, this was like, it's a direct challenge to the American hegemonic situation in this part of the world. Speaker 2 Yeah, and then the Japanese is a. Speaker 1 Problem. Japanese of course have to follow suit with American Australians. All suddenly we found ourselves having a whole lot of people very annoyed and angry and Viswaputra was set in a situation where it had to sort of basically because Prime Minister said it, then you got to sort of make that happen. So something like that also happened with the issue of BRICS, because also I don't think they've been a talk about it, but thankfully it seems to be a good, you know, better situation. Speaker 2 We will fortunate in the sense that we are company from other ASEAN countries. Speaker 1 Exactly as well. It's not a very bad, not a challenging thing or controversial thing like EEG. But the result of this personalized foreign policy means that sometimes you can expect, you know, surprises. Has gone to 38 countries, 30th country here. In some places I think he has, but he, I think he has been, he's a bit more careful. I think he's quite cautious of the fact that the, unlike Doctor Matthew, the country does not have the luxury of money anymore. When Doctor Matthew was Prime Minister, the country is very rich. You could do a lot of adventure with foreign policy. You can do Antarctica, You can do all kinds of foreign policy adventures, which costs a lot of money because when you say that the diplomats have to travel to so many meetings all over the world, talking all kinds of stuff, make sure that this policy matches that policy so that we are not in contradiction. So everybody got plenty of work to do all the time, you know, But that to say Anwar taken over government, which has got one point something 5 trillion being worth a debt. So there's really not much of A room for adventure in foreign policy. Speaker 2 And he's also, like, you know, charging private companies to share some of the jobs. Speaker 1 So I think he has got to use his more of his intellect. And so I am saying that he's actually using his sort of personal soft power and the country's soft power because the country's got lots of power to multicultural stable sort of still. Speaker 2 Good investment. Speaker 1 Investment place, many countries in the world still look up, look up at Malaysia as a good role model, a good role model. I mean we have diminished ourselves in some ways over the years through a lot of things, but we are still there, not very bad. So we have some soft power, I think together with his own soft power. Remember, the man has been jailed. Speaker 2 Twice. Speaker 1 Twice and then came to power. This is the kind of image actually is very attractive to a lot of people out there. You know, they come back, you know, finally made it, you know so that gives him a certain soft power that he is able to actually articulate or use it well. Plus he is also a very well read man erudite. He speaks well, so he. Speaker 2 Knows a lot about philosophy a. Speaker 1 Lot of so he he comes out saying the right thing, you know, so I think he's he's doing it so far done it. Speaker 2 Charismatically. Speaker 1 Charismatically, you know, if I were to give him a grade, I think somebody asked me, you know, in one of those talks, give him a pass mark line, you know, you know, stimuli has 70 is pass, you know. Speaker 2 OK, OK, OK. Speaker 1 He I'll give him at least a 70 line. Speaker 2 So maybe like AB grade? Speaker 1 Kind of big grade line. I mean he has to do a bit more to get a line, but then they're not bad line at. Speaker 2 Least not as bad as the D grade, but yeah, yeah. Speaker 3 Yeah, but it's for separate methods. Supplemental. Supplemental. Speaker 2 This foreign policy. So he's taking a foreign policy. Any final questions that you want to ask Dottie Lango? Speaker 3 For me pretty much to sum it up in maybe just a sentence, right? How a stronger ASEAN benefits livelihoods Maybe can you tell the man in the street, right, more clearly in that sense where how will it benefit their wallet, right? Or how will it benefit their business or their livelihood with a stronger ASEAN? Speaker 1 I think ASEAN should find our focus not only now but even the years to go. How to make cost of transaction cheaper so that when the final product arrives at your destination, you would get it at a cheaper level than it would have been elsewhere? Does it mean that you got to remove some tariffs? Does it mean you got to remove some non tariff barriers? Does it mean you got to harmonize some custom specs or anything else? Look into all those kind of things. So that's what we ASEAN Mitti should be doing, looking at all those places where you can remove the cost so that final product comes to the consumer cheaper. So his engage goes further. That's one problem. One thing that he wants to, I'm sure he would like to have that. Second is that can he do business with other countries easily? Speaker 2 In ASEAN. Speaker 1 In ASEAN, so we need to find out what are the blocks over there. Does it require any particular certification, certain qualifications, any kinds of stuff? Can we harmonize this kind of things? Can we get rid of some of the documentaries? We are no longer necessary, for example, to make it easy, for example, that this one thing. Third level is that is it possible? For example, you know, for I'm just thinking, for example, can my children do internships, say in some important companies, let's say in let's say like. Speaker 2 Asia in Thailand. Speaker 1 For example, somebody in Indonesia might want to do that, for example. How can they do it today? Is there? Speaker 2 In Axata, you know what? The banks, yeah. Speaker 1 So I think so long as the governments are thinking about ways that they can make it easy, easy, cheaper, profitable for the civil people, then I think we're on the right track. Yeah. So it means that many, many things got to be done, not just one. Yeah, Like I told you, by ASEAN got 1000 meetings, which means that 1000 types of activities are being done every year. You know, let's hope that some of them are actually thinking. Speaker 3 As you were saying that, right, I think one thing came across my mind was that I, I think just like usually when we are very familiar with certain things, we can't know, like Penang State is famous for what? This place is famous for what? But I, I start to realize that actually we don't have a list for Asian itself, right? We don't know what country is famous for what number 2 is like if let's say Asian is really that important as a thing, it should be. It shouldn't be only after so long now only we talk about because we are sharing it. It should be an agenda that every year that will look forward to and say, hey, I said something's going to go on, right? Like what are they going to discuss? And I think this is something that will actually help because like, like you were just saying right now, these were so many golf products coming in from Vietnam and that gave a lot of opportunity to small businesses in Malaysia to actually do well, right? Ending And many business opportunity there. And that's the only thing I know because I play golf. But I'm pretty sure there are a lot more things that I don't know that just because I'm not involved in. Speaker 2 Yeah. And I, you know, just to wrap things up, I heard about this example of a Malaysian businessman in the semiconductor ecosystem, the E&E ecosystem in Penang, who has gone out and acquired a company in Thailand was in the auto business because they are part and parcel of the supply chain for one of the global EV companies, right? So these are stories which we need to go out and amplify and tell a bit more. And I'm sure that this will not be the last time we'll be talking about ASEAN in 2025. Maybe we can get the chair of the ASEAN Business Advisory Council, Tasvi Nazir to come and share his vision later on in this podcast, you know, on, on what the private sector can do to align the interests of the private sector and also of the the governments in ASEAN. So with that, thank you so much Doctor Ilango for this very illuminating conversation. Thanks so much for your patience in listening. Right, right through through to the end. If you haven't done so already, please click the subscribe button so that we can continue our upward trend towards hopefully what, 100,000 subscribers by the end of the year. Yeah, we're at about 31,000. And at the same time, don't forget to also listen to Doctor Ilango on Diplomatify. That's a, you know, we'll put it in our notes in terms of the link and see you next week.